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Two more jigsaw pieces this week to help the Falcon story. And no surprise at all that Ms VegasGal is again quickest on the button to bring us this news.

Scott Morrison's comments at the press club in Canberra on Monday that referred to amongst other things an additional investment of A$200 million aimed primarily at reducing investment risk and fast tracking exploration in the Beetaloo region, is very helpful indeed. Most of the money will be spent on new roads (and drainage) and the budget for the latter has been increased to A$390 million. Second, he confirmed that the Federal Government is launching a new initiative to work with the Northern Territories to streamline regulatory processes and cut red tape. And third the government is setting up a team to develop a new Beetaloo Aboriginal Economic development Strategy.

Every step that the government takes like this will help persuade the business and credit analysts of the increasing probability that not only will the Beetaloo ultimately be developed but it might come sooner rather than later and could if a number of other things fall into place increase the discounted value of Falcon's investment in the Basin.

Empire's latest press releases does no harm either to Origin, Santos, Inpex....and little Falcon. it gives everyone additional slides and pretty maps to get over 'our message' to all the analysts and when the time comes in the Summer our team will probably acknowledge it will make it more easily for them to get their message across to Robin Hood investors in the US, Canadian TV and the Motley Fool and others on both sides of the pond.

What Falcon needs is the Kyalla 117, when the wet season ends, to ......and give us two months or more exciting flow numbers thereafter. If we get it we're on the way to what many of you all call a 7 or 8 'bagger' from these levels. If it again disappoints it's not very good news and we'll be fortunate ultimately to recover much more than the current price.

Current investors including me just have to be patient. Those of us who have trolley loads don't have much choice. it's very unlikely I'll buy more because no one in my humble view should have too much in a single pot like Falcon. But others might have a different strategy and who am I to argue against.

Meanwhile the Australians, like the US, the UK, New Zealand, israel, the UAE and one or two others who put up risk capital for the drug companies to develop the vaccines for their own countries and the poorer countries through COVAX will come throgh the

Mr Sneakysnake what will help your understanding is to go through how the analysts compile their numbers.

if you still have some difficulty further clues can be found by studying how much different 'players' can currently borrow against the security of their acreage in the Basin.

We have hope value yes. but we are still a long long long way from anyone developing 'the discoveries'. Saying that, many of us hold the belief that there are lots of chances that the odds in favour will reduce in 2021 and 2022 to the extent that new player(s) with deeper pockets than falcon will want to take us out..... Most people would further tell you that if Origin now makes giant progress with their drilling programme all the extra information available by the end of 4Q 2022 will make it easier for everyone to guesstimate the value of recoverable dry and wet gas...and oil in the Basin and whether overall its worth becoming a player and spending billions to bring it to market.

Like always Mr Newtofo you make lots of good points that personally I don't disagree with but analysts with their abacus poring through the Origin figures don't yet rate the chances of commercial development too highly. No argument there's great prospects but there's still quite a few things in their minds that have to fall into place for shareholders in Falcon and other parties with a direct or indirect interest to make significant sums of money from the Beetaloo. If I was wrong Falcon and Origin shares today would be a lot higher...but they are not. However it doesn't mean I do not rule out many of the pieces falling into place in the next 18 to 24 months or so, and many of us who have averaged down our entry price can ultimately make a turn on our suitcase of shares.

Let's hope when the dry season returns we get early news around mid year or not too long after that of a successful 60-90 day test of our wet gas in the Kyala formation. I want to hear further news too before they finish testing that we are starting more exploratory work in other parts of the Basin. And who knows we might even get positive news from Santos whose work progress I suspect might even proceed at a faster clip than the Origin team.

I might not be as cavalier as I was when I first took the plunge into these shares at 60 cents Canadian (worth circa 30 pence at the time) in Summer 2005 but I've wised up enough over the years to realise that I'm in a lot better shape now that the Bruner clan has been shown the door and the board of the Company today is better endowed.

Downside today must be minimal just based on what we already know. Upside will come in the next 24 months or so and I'm prepared to wait for it.

Mr Sneakysnake if you are a client of UBS, RBC and other houses who cover Origin and/or Santos in Australia you'll find their material very useful. The possible future value of Origin's stake in the Beetaloo Basin is always based on analysts' different views on probability of future commercial development.

if it can be shown in the next couple of years that there is a 40-50 per cent or more probability that the Beetaloo Basin as a whole is a commercial prospect Falcon's share is going to have some value and ought to attract two or more bidders. However right now most analysts agree that probability of commercial development is one in eight or one in ten only pending more news in the second half of this year and next in our acreage, and others' landholdings nearby or in adjacent lands.

Second, the Australian federal government's actions to speed up the discovery process and part fund some of the infrastructure spending very much assists us if in due course it can be demonstrated that it has cut overall lead times to commercial development. One less year on a DCF spread sheet can be significant when calculating value.

Third, Origin is not going to preempt any process before it completes in full the terms of its farm in agreement it signed with Falcon in March last year. If Origin only earns its 77.5% interest in the project when it completes an extensive drilling programme within an agreed timeframe. Failure to do so and Falcon will retain its 100 per cent holding, repeating again what happened before when POQ stood up to Hess and brought in new partners.

Fourth, investors in Falcon need to understand more just how much our position has improved in recent years as a result of Management renegotiating royalty agreements previously committed to by the Bruner clan. The company no longer has to pay four, five, six percent of its future revenues to third parties - any one of them on their own in their original form totally eliminated shareholder value.

Fifth, the company's ability to hang in there has further improved not just because we spend much less these days running the company but from the continued support of our institutional investors including the Russians. ...

2021 and 2022 might prove rewarding. but do not underestimate the level of risk even if it's less than it was before.

Can we monetise our minority interest that we have in the Beetaloo Basin? We don't have the answer yet but there are now increasing signs that we are starting to take steps that might ultimately might get us there.

Not everything is down to Origin. We're getting quite a bit of help too from Santos and the Australian federal government, and after last August's elections in the Northern Territories, both the governing party and the Opposition are weighing in with practical support. What's more I'm happy that the right sort of deal has been done with the local residents so that they too might share in any upside if it ultimately comes through.

But our option play is not going to be worth anything unless the yield from our wells can give prospectors a trading profit. There must be visibility too that proper transport links are going to be put in place. That's why the NRs that came through before and after Christmas are improving bit by bit (when taken together) the Falcon story.

Can we extract multi levels at the same time? That's beginning to look like quite possible. Are carbon dioxide levels suitably low?That's a yes, in fact a big tick. Is there increasing evidence now of NLG at different levels across wide areas of the Beetaloo Basin? Santos said yes last year. Origin/Falcon this week have given early confirmation that we have the same at different levels.

The government giving a subsidy to drillers on each well drilled in the next 2 years is nice too. The government offering their support on roads and a pipeline is another positive.

Notwithstanding the positives many of us I suspect have too large a weighting in our portfolios in this option play. Buying any more is not necessarily wise. The COVID pandemic and opinion swings amongst the political parties down under in the last 4 years has surely taught us that if nothing else. What I'm looking for in 2021 and 2022 is further news from Santos, Origin/Falcon et al that will attract new investors. I think it's coming and I'm prepared to wait.

I think what you say is fair Newtofo. Many on this board feared very negative news from Fog and Origin. This latest release therefore was relatively good news.

I'm now looking forward to the programme restarting in earnest in the second quarter once the wet season finishes. Hopefully the drilling pace will also pick up at the same time.

Two other issue that are important to us - gas and liquid gas prices have strongly rebounded down under after all the gloom in the middle of last year; and after the 2020 US election there's reduced likelihood of US gas being shipped to the Asian markets.

I think you are going to be pleasantly surprised Mr Longknife. Our situation in recent times on occasion has appeared not so rosy. Nitrogen had worked in other parts of the world. i gather it also proved most helpful in our Beetaloo bloc back in 2016. But now we have received proof of concept today that of course it works in different rocks and at a different depth in a different part of our acreage.

There's greater prospect now of multi layered extraction and that brings down costs, and we have more emphasis too of wet gas in recent news releases. Both are these positive news and ultimately increases the probability of a commercial find.

There's every reason now to look forward to the rest of this year when the wet season ends. and we clearly have a better floor under the current share price.

It's not easy to trade in these shares in any worthwhile quantity, but the news today at least holds out the prospect of an exit second half next year or early 2023 and in the meantime we're fully paid up for our share of the Origin project.

None of these things are a 'slam dunk'. Somewhat relieved therefore that Nitrogen has done the trick in January. My guess is we can fully expect further progress once the dry season returns in a few months time.

The last 6 months represent a positive turnaround in the Falcon story We can now envisage quite a busy 2021 with Origin not only running more prolonged testing on this site but also undertaking testing elsewhere (including may be in the original Amungee area) to further prove up multi layer delivery and 'deliver' similar flows in the same geology as discovered last year by Santos et al in their areas of the Beetaloo.

Lots of catalysts therefore for Falcon shares in the rest of the year and we're probably getting nearer to the time when management can return to the circuit (on zoom) to present the Company's story to investors.

5,6 or 7 days I gather is probably right. But what's even more important to know is when the 5,6 or 7 days start.

Sneakysnake below is offering very wise counsel on this.

I'm confident too that POQ as CEO of FOG will update us all as and when any information comes through. FOG has Republic of Ireland, UK and Canadian stock exchange rules that it must comply with in all circumstances. We can only but hope that the message when it comes is ultimately good.

Don't be too surprised John Pearson. Most people on this board have filtered out BigOnes and others several years ago, although I have to own up myself that until recently I had not been aware I could take such action. BigOnes particularly annoys people on this board because over the years he has told porky pies and hoped to profit from it

There is no reason to presume that if the equipment arrived on Christmas eve, the team should cancel all their holidays and start their programme immediately. Notwithstanding this IMHO we should probably hear one way or another by early next week. In the meantime I'm convinced that our Management and Origin team have been persuaded by the experts that the nitrogen will do the trick.

Don't get too excited JP. There have been only 2 trades today on the LSE - one for 2,500 shares and another for 1,744 shares at 7.44 pence and 7.5 pence. The market in London is almost illiquid at the moment. If you wanted to trade a bloc of say 250,000 shares in a trading session on most days it would be almost impossible to do.

I have an important maxim in these situations Mr Hydrogen. If I want to buy something I have to be confident in the future that I can sell it. You can't trade in these shares except in very small parcels and even then the market spread in the shares and the currency severely punish you..

With FOG I had always assumed that at the end of the day a third party would bid for us and there would be an orderly exit. I sincerely hope that this will still take place but our Aussie partner and their contractors have not always seemed to be experienced enough to circumnavigate around some of the bear traps that one might encounter in what is a very complex drilling programme in the Basin. I don't think the extreme political focus and their annual rainy season are helping things either....POQ of course did buy us more time earlier this year but I'm not too sure what our options are (if any) if time and money are inadvertently wasted by our Partner and their sub-contractors in the future.

We have to face it, If a commercial play is not proven our investment is worth nothing. In the meantime the reality is that our shares are almost untradeable and we'll shortly be approaching the tax loss selling season in Canada next month with no prospect concrete news until the end of the first quarter. It's not going to be pleasant.

Best advice must be sit on your hands but come and attend next month the company's AGM and hear direct what are our realistic prospects are in 2021 and 2022.

Most important keep well keep safe. And remember too we have the good news of the COVID vaccines to help dig ourselves out of our rabbit hole existence.

For those of you that remain very worried it is still good news that Origin's shares closed almost 4% up today since that probably tells you that the local analysts were told a slightly more positive story in the zoom Q and A sessions. I assume too that Origin would also want the Markets to focus more on prospects in the Velkeri in our patch.

I read this latest missive as the fracing process in our Kyalla well has not yet proved a great success but our Australian partner is willing to try again in a few months time. Some of us are aware originally that former members of the FO management team and their advisors were worried more than 10 years ago that the upper, middle and lower Kyalla may be too sandy and retain pockets of water in the formations making it relatively more difficult to apply a fracing process than in other areas of the Beetaloo.

I'm sure there's no doubt amongst everyone that our property contains large amounts of gas etc. but we have to prove to the markets that we have the ability to recover sufficient quantities in the Basin to make commercial development a viable proposition and our stake actually has some value..

2017, 2018 and 2019 were not happy years for FOG shareholders. 2020 of course started with such high hopes but sadly COVID from mid February onwards, political uncertainty in the middle of the year and now Origin not having initial success in their Kyalla drilling programme, has made this year not a happy one for FOG shareholders. With dealing in London and other markets often so illiquid in our shares we have no choice but to remain patient and wait another year to see whether we can recover some of our investment and for a few of us even make a small profit.

The odds against us on this investment whatever way one spins this have not reduced after this announcement. Most professional investors would probably say it's not prudent to suggest to current investors to add any more to their holdings as most of them are already over weighted in this high risk play. What's more few professional investors will be tempted to invest anew in the absence of any certainty that commercial development might take place. There's too many places elsewhere now where they can successfully invest.

Only one positive thing has happened this year that has put off all of us now prematurely writing off our whole investment Falcon management successfully renegotiated our agreement with Origin. I would remind some of you on this board too that if you read the Company's accounts you will see that POQ owns 3 million shares in this company and is probably hurting just as much as us on this latest setback.

Hopefully I'll see some of you at the AGM.

Can I add my three penny worth and say many thanks sincerely to you Hydrogen for the time you have taken and your honestly reporting everything to this board this week. But can I humbly advise that you filter out oddballs like Bigones rather than read some of their nonsense.

I also want to commend to everyone yesterday's posting from Newtofo.

News from the Beetaloo continues to be good but obviously the market as a whole is spooked by the second/third wave of COVID in different parts of the world. What will be more important to Falcon/Origin/Santos analysts however are prospects of full recovery in 2022 and after, when Falcon will be put up for sale. To this end the most important news in recent days is the progress of Moderna (MRNA who are quoted NASDAQ) and others who have used CRISPR technology to develop their mRNA molecular vaccines which not only will protect individuals but also treat those with the virus in future. I highlight too Moderna specifically because distribution of their product can be achieved through channels already existing and be kept in fridges for at least a week.

Other significant news for us at the end of October 2020 is the continued low incidence of the virus in the whole of Australia and just how successful the Northern Territories have been in keeping totally on top of protecting their population. Australia and New Zealand are enjoying a re-run of their successful outcome they achieved after the end of the First World War when they were battling a flu virus.

Rather than criticising Origin and Falcon for not flooding us once or twice a week whether something moves or not, some of us are increasingly impressed that they recognise too they have a duty to a bigger list of stakeholders. Very few of us anyway have the time or skill mix to trade in and out of this stock in meaningful quantities. We're not therefore dependent on the regular fixes you sometimes get with junior exploration companies. In essence what others like me are more focused on is the buy-out price late 2021/2022 which when it comes will factor in not just the KPI's like recoverable reserves, domestic and export prices, production costs et al, but the political risks (whatever they may be by then) and the probability of commercial development. In this context I strongly suspect that the Government in Canberra too wants there to be a degree of certainty behind whatever Origin eventually reveals.

Newtofo your assumption is right of course. What however does move the dial materially is if assumptions change on likely Beetaloo commercial development and/or analysts' assumptions on costs and revenues. It's probably worth pointing out too that costs may still be higher in OZ than they are in the US given, as they see it, they have a better understanding of the risk issues down under. On the other hand LNG prices are materially higher in Oz and SE and E Asia....

Newtofo, a 7.5% drop from 30% to 22.5% in our stake I may be wrong, I think is the equivalent to a 25% reduction i.e. from 52 pence to 39 pence in the Davy target price - which just happens to be (so I gather from previous posts) the same as the Cenkos target price earlier this year. Funny that...

Notwithstanding that if our chaps have a successful frac Down Under (we're not going to have to wait too long I hope) revised figures will be a lot more bullish as success in the Upper and Lower Kyalla will be more likely linked to further success in the Velkeri, and if combining them all it will conjure up dreams of stacked plays and very exciting cuts in Origin/Falcon's production costs. What's more greater wet gas in the play will bump up further the overall yield and bring closer analysts' and others' decision to factor into their numbers a higher probability that the Beetaloo will ultimately become a commercial play. Everyone says the latter is only a 10% chance today. If that figure doubles to 20% the valuation of our stake doubles too!!

I commend again the excellent informative posts of Newtofo and WetWater. Newtofo underlines the level of risk in this option play. Before today Origin and Falcon in blackjack terms were almost all in on their Kyalla play and the degree of technical difficulty and the economics were definitely being played down by too many.

Today's news therefore, even if it is the form of a big hype from the Empire MD - rather reminiscent of Mr Bruner in the past - at least gives the directors of Origin and Falcon potentially valuable headline date on the Velkeri that in the next couple of years might prove to be the icing on the cake during any exercise to establish fair value on their stakes in the Beetaloo.

Like many of you I'm hopeful that the team might deliver for us soon a reasonably good frac if not this time then when they try again in a few months...and by golly when this does happen there will be nothing better than enjoying the crack from our celebrated team in Ireland.

In the meantime we should not fret about the overhang of shares. Either the holder is going to be wiped out like the rest of us in the rush to the exit, which I dearly hope is not going to happen, or any news that adds credence that we have here a commercial find will take out this Sweet Pea stake very quickly and give some of us a lot of pleasure that a significant number of these shares had to be sold earlier for only a few cents....By the way I have the same view on the cash we've put aside to take out the last portion of the Bruner royalty.

One last point. The Velkeri wet play in EP76 is now clearly a good prospect Mr dprusky. But if Kyalla meets expectations in line with the local and national governments' hopes in Australia the fastest route to proving Beetaloo commerciality will still be further drilling next year in the Kyalla.

I commend again the excellent informative posts of Newtofo and WetWater. Newtofo underlines the level of risk in this option play. Before today Origin and Falcon in blackjack terms were almost all in on their Kyalla play and the degree of technical difficulty and the economics were definitely being played down by too many.

Today's news therefore, even if it is the form of a big hype from the Empire MD - rather reminiscent of Mr Bruner in the past - at least gives the directors of Origin and Falcon potentially valuable headline date on the Velkeri that in the next couple of years might prove to be the icing on the cake during any exercise to establish fair value on their stakes in the Beetaloo.

Like many of you I'm hopeful that the team might deliver for us soon a reasonably good frac if not this time then when they try again in a few months...and by golly when this does happen there will be nothing better than enjoying the crack from our celebrated team in Ireland.

In the meantime we should not fret about the overhang of shares. Either the holder is going to be wiped out like the rest of us in the rush to the exit, which I dearly hope is not going to happen, or any news that adds credence that we have here a commercial find will take out this Sweet Pea stake very quickly and give some of us a lot of pleasure that a significant number of these shares had to be sold earlier for only a few cents....By the way I have the same view on the cash we've put aside to take out the last portion of the Bruner royalty.

One last point. The Velkeri wet play in EP76 is now clearly a good prospect Mr dprusky. But if Kyalla meets expectations in line with the local and national governments' hopes in Australia the fastest route to proving Beetaloo commerciality will still be further drilling next year in the Kyalla.