3:00AM New York, 7:00PM Sydney – BHP plans to double its oil production in the next four years. Santos finalizes its investment in gas project.

Market Sentiments

ASX 200 index gained 0.1% or 5.4 to close at 5,625.00.

The Preliminary market turnover was 1.59 billion shares worth $5.44 billion, with 651 stocks up, 550 down and 340 unchanged. The most traded stock was Centro Properties with 87.8 million shares worth $39.4 million.

Market Driver

Santos today announced that it has finalized its investment in the Reindeer Gas Project located offshore Western Australia. Santos and its partner Apache Corp based in the U.S. plans to spend $800 million on the development of the Reindeer gas project and hopes to deliver gas at the end of the year 2010.

Reindeer gas, according to Santos would be produced via an unmanned, minimum facility wellhead platform located in 65 meters of water and gas and liquids would be exported from the platform to a new onshore gas processing plant via a single 105-kilometre pipeline.

The Reindeer field proven reserves are estimated at approximately 485 Petajoules (Santos share approximately 220 Petajoules) of sales gas and 1.6 million barrels (Santos share approximately 0.7 million barrels) of condensate.

Santos chief executive, David Knox said the formal approval of the Reindeer Gas Project represents another important step in monetizing Santos'' significant gas resources and highlights the positive impacts of bringing a significant new source of gas supply into the rapidly growing Western Australian market.

The Reindeer gas field was discovered in 1997 and is located in the Carnarvon Basin, offshore Western Australia within exploration permit WA-209-P.

Santos has a 45% interest in the Reindeer Gas Project and Apache Northwest Pty Ltd has 55% holds the remaining interest. Santos'' share of the estimated project capital cost is $379 million.

Santos share was up 0.6%.

Gainers and losers

Of the ASX 200 index stocks, Centro Properties led the gainers with a rise of 14.8% followed by increases in Kagara Ltd of 9.1%, in Seek Ltd of 8.2%, in Western Areas NL of 7.6% and in Fortescue Metals of 7%.

Of the ASX 200 index stocks, Allco Finance Group led the decliners with a fall of 8.7% followed by losses in Sundance Resource of 6.9%, in ANZ Bank of 6.6%, in Babcock & Brown of 5.6% and in St George Bank of 5.4%.

Fortescue''s directors sell off shares due to exposure to Opes

Fortescue Metals Group Ltd today announced that it was advised by two directors, Herb Elliott and Graeme Rowley, that they will be selling a total of 3.22 million shares to cover the margin call after the collapse of stock broker Opes. The shares were valued at $23 million based on closing price of stock on Friday.

The total number of shares sold represents only 0.12% of Fortescue''s issued capital and company confirmed that no other directors or executives have pending margin call against company shares.

Fortescue also celebrated its first shipment of iron out of the Pilbara which the company termed as historic event.

Fortescue''s share was up 5.3%.