>..do these results look like they might hold promise???

Absolutely. A promise, but not a guarantee though. These old wells had oil shows, not oil flows. At one point, there was oil in them there hills. Over time, as in the last billion years or so, all that oil went somewhere (migration). The question is, where did it go? There is a good possibility that the 'free flowing' oil is still in the basin somewhere, trapped in a reservoir. PHUN and Falcon need to find it using seismic. That is their first option.

The second option is to go for the oil shale. The source rocks are still 'soaked' in oil, but that oil won't flow, so it needs encouragement, as in fracing. Obviously fracing is expensive, thats why it's preferable to find the free flowing stuff first.

If that doesnt work, there might be a BCGA underneath it all.

Here's a good article that explains it in more detail

The Beetaloo Basin

The Beetaloo Basin covers approximately 8.8 million acres / 35,600 km2 and is patently underexplored. Current exploration operator, Sweatpea Corporation is undertaking major basin studies as part of a renewed exploration effort after a break of 15 years. Unconventional fractured shale oil/gas plays and basin centred gas plays are being prioritised in addition to conventional structural plays. Farm-in opportunities are being made available as the program progresses to seismic acquisition.

The basin contains more than 3,000 m of Precambrian and younger sediments including several thick, rich source rock intervals, the richest of which has reportedly more than 100 m of black, generally oil-prone, shale with a total organic carbon content which typically ranges from 4 to 7% but which can be as high as 12%. [That is very high]

Three thick sandstone sequences also occur within the basin which may represent potential reserves interbedded with the source rock intervals. Large, untested structural leads are also thought to be present. Within the basin there is only about 2,700 km of 2D seismic and 11 wells. Most of the wells are stratigraphic tests, drilled during the late-80s to early-90s by the petroleum arm of a large mining company. Few, if any, of the wells were located with reference to seismically defined structural closures. [Hey Joe, lets drill a well over here] Nevertheless, oil shows have been reported in several of these holes and free oil has been reportedly recovered on test.

International oil producing areas which are considered to be broad analogues to the Beetaloo Basin occur in North America, eastern Siberia and the Middle East. The upside potential is large but, as yet, unproven, because, despite appearing to have the ingredients for the generation and entrapment of oil, the area is, for all practical purposes, vastly underexplored.

Quite a few things have changed during the 15 or more years that have passed since the last time there was a serious attempt to look for oil in the Beetaloo Basin. Substantial infrastructure has been established in the form of a much improved road link and a new rail line to Darwin, a new gas pipeline has been constructed, and Aboriginal land right agreements have been executed.

[The gas pipeline isn't much help at the moment, it's already full]