Hi, I'm Nissa Darbonne, executive editor at large for Hart Energy. Thanks for joining us. I'm at DUG Haynesville 2023, visiting with Dick Stoneburner. Dick is currently chairman of Tamboran Resources, an Australian shale developer. Dick, however, has for the past many years been a wildcatter in the U.S. And was an early player in Shale, particularly the early days of the Haynesville, and then was part of the team with Petrohawk Energy that founded the Eagle Ford play. Dick, thanks for joining us.

Nissa Darbonne: From your perspective in Australia -- that's completely dependent your natural gas development there, monetizing it via LNG exports -- what are your thoughts on the resource in Australia and how it compares to American natural gas shale?

Dick Stoneburner: Well, in comparing the resource we've found by comparing most of your metrics, petrophysical metrics such as TOC (total organic carbon) and gas in place, porosity [permeability], all those different petrophysical components of a reservoir, it compares very favorably to the Marcellus in our opinion. I think it compares to the Eagle Ford as well, the dry gas window of the Eagle Ford. But I think it's an over pressured reservoir, whereas the Marcellus and the Northeast is just slightly over pressured and we are just slightly over pressured. So that's kind of why we tend to gravitate to the comparison of the Marcellus. Not to mention the Marcellus is one of the most productive shale reservoirs in the world, and we're not doing that just because it's the best. We truly believe it has the similar characteristics.

Regarding the takeaway I would modify the statement regarding the LNG a little bit in that we also have the opportunity to take it to the southeast markets where 90% of the people live in Australia. While we're a long way away, there is actually existing infrastructure kind of hopscotching your way down through the country that we can deliver our first hundred million cubic feet a day to the southeast market, which is quite honestly what the country needs. The country is drastically undersupplied for domestic. That's generally because, believe it or not, Australia was the second-largest LNG exporter until the United States developed as much as we have. But because it exports so much and their long-term contracts, they've kind of shorted themselves with their own supply because they have too much of it contracted to go offshore. So the domestic market is really a need of what we can provide. And so our, we think the first call it a hundred million cubic feet, for lack of a better number, will most likely go south to the markets. And then the longer term marketing would be on the water out of Darwin.

ND: And Northern Australia, I think from our conversations in the past, it is closer to Eastern Asian LNG markets than certainly Qatar. And then obviously the U.S., too. You're closest to market there. So your perspective on Asian demand, because our U.S. existing LNG exports and then all of those that are under construction ... do you feel like U.S. LNG exports are going to depend more and more in the European market?

DS: That is exactly what has happened – that the volumes from the Gulf Coast have been diverted from the Southeast Asia markets to Europe for good reason, obvious reason. But we're like three days from Darwin to Indonesia. I heard the other day we were talking about the same topic. It's 22 days from the Gulf Coast to Europe. So I mean, and that might have been Gulf Coast to Asia, one or the other. It's a long, it's a long boat ride wherever you're going from the Gulf Coast markets, whether it be Europe or Southeast Asia. But where we are in Darwin, again, far northern port of Australia, you have the entire Southeast Asia markets. You have Korea, you have Japan, and we have some economic assumptions based upon our [finding and development] costs. The transportation, the regasification, we think we can get it to call it JKM [Japan Korea Marker] market for $5, all in. And that market today is I think kind of a $15 to $25 market. So we really feel like we will be the most advantaged. Actually, those costs are comparable to Qatar. They're right about $5. And so if we can achieve those costs, then we're going to be the most advantaged gas for the whole area.

ND: Five dollars? That's incredible.

DS: It's aspirational, but it's believable. Yeah.

To learn more about Tamboran Resources, visit hartenergy.com.

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