north sea block 48

I noticed that Northwest Energy went for a bit of a run on Friday (up 12.6%) on 7.4M volume.

I recall that NDO and NWE have an agreement over the North Sea assets originally assigned to NDO.

NWE's activity schedule shows that their reprocessing, remapping and farmout activities were expected to be completed by May-June 2006 (NOW), followed by "drill when rig available".

Is it possible that they have found a rig and that drilling could start soon?

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Here is an extract from slide 14 of NWE's presentation dated 24/03/2006

Block 48/1b & 2c 50% & Operating:
-Prospect updip of undeveloped gas discovery
-Prospect very similar to producing fields
-Surrounded by producing fields to multi TCF size
-Pipeline capacity available at nearby platforms
-Potential for 100-150 billion cubic feet
-25 BCF is commercial
-Apply cutting edge drilling technology (long lateral horizontal wells)
-3D seismic being reprocessed in Perth
-Very strong farmin interest in December 2005 at London prospect fair
-Complete 3D repro March, farmout and drill as soon as rig available

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I can't find an ASX announcement of the results of the reprocessing of 3D seismic data ..... so it must be expected any time now you would expect.

So how does this all fit together given that NDO and NWE share these blocks 50% / 50% and the Virgo Energy IPO is not expected now until late 2006 / early 2007?

Is it possible that the results of the 3D reprocessing are so compelling that NDO and NWE might decide to drill Block 48 as soon as possible without the other Virgo partners?

How does NWE fit in with the proposed Virgo Energy IPO?