Shares in Santos Ltd (ASX: STO) are rangebound on Monday and now trade less than 1% in the red at $7.51 apiece.
There's a lot feeding into the Santos share price this week, not in the least buoyant commodity markets that are staging multi-year highs.
Brent crude futures have surfaced at US$110/Bbl on Monday and are now up almost 14% for the month, despite a recent cooling off.
Price raced to near record highs in February amid tensions in Europe, as the sensitivity of a supply shock was felt immediately in the markets. Beforehand, prices were already in a strong rally that started back in December.
Jitters then appeared to settle somewhat as prices reverted back to longer-term averages, before jumping 12% again over the weekend. Santos is shown against the Brent Crude April 2022 futures contract below.
What's up with the Santos share price today?
Santos also released an important update before the open of trade today regarding the Tanumbirini 2H (T2H) and 3H (T3H) horizontal gas wells in the Beetaloo Basin.
The hydrocarbons giant advised of an approximately 17% increase to previously reported gas flow rates from T2H and T3H.
Santos is a joint partner with Tamboran Resources Limited (ASX: TBN) on the project, found on exploration permit (EP) 161 in the Beetaloo Basin.
Santos, the project's operator on a 75% working interest, had spudded the well back in May 2021 and recalibrated historic flow data as recently as February 2022.
Flow data now indicates that average gas flow rates from T2H and T3H were "2 million standard cubic feet per day ("mmscfd") (normalised at 3 mmscfd over 1,000-metres) and 1.7 mmscfd (normalised at 2.9 mmscfd over 1,000-metres) respectively."
"Further market updates on T2H and T3H are anticipated following the installation of tubing during the second quarter of calendar year 2022," the company added.
Tamboran CEO, Joel Riddle said the updated data gives more confidence in the project's viability and profitability.
"Flow testing at this rate from the fracture stimulation program gives us increased confidence in the productivity," he said.
Santos share price snapshot
In the last 12 months, the Santos share price has gained 5% and has gained 19% this year to date, ahead of most peers.
During the past month, shares have climbed another 7% before levelling off during the past week of trading.
