Ann: Halifax 1 Well Spudded , page-21

Totally agree with you Acorn. Recommend that the sceptics read the news item on Icon's home page titled "The next big thing...".

Z. I understand your cynicism, this IS a dirty world and we are talking $billions, so, yes, there is great room for unscrupulous people to try to take advantage of weaker partners. In Beach's ann that Beach and Icon were going to accelerate their unconvential gas programme and bring forward the drilling of Halifax-1 by several weeks, Reg Nelson, NOT R.J., stated that "in collaboration with Icon....". Icon was involved in the whole process of the drilling of Halifax-1. And if you take a close look at all Icon's latest announcements re Halifax-1, they always state that BPT's ownership in Halifax-1 is still "subject to J/V conditions". BPT MUST drill Halifax-1 as specified in the 40% J/V agreement with Icon and must satisfy Icon that they have done so according to agreed terms and conditions.
Apart from that, Acorn is completely correct, when you also take into consideration the state of gas supply and plant construction on Australia's east coast. Over $200 billion has been committed in building these LNG plants and the operators DO NOT HAVE ENOUGH GAS TO SUPPORT THEM!!!
There is a huge race going on out there to try to prove up as much gas as possible, as quickly as possible, and those that do it will go to the front of the line with the LNG plant operators. And ICN has a 20 GSA to go with any gas found!!!
When Encounter encountered probable commercial volumes from their VERTICAL well, Beach would have been absolutely ecstatic. That enabled them to use the same rig that drilled Encounter and not have to wait another 8-10 weeks for the Ensign 965 that had been held up in the U.S.
AND they couldn't decide quickly enough and we now see Halifax-1 being drilled months earlier than if we had had to wait for Ensign 965.
Z. As Acorn has also rightly stated, given the urgency of finding gas and the $BILLIONS in play, you wouldn't imagine that Beach would waste 3 months and $16 million on drilling a dud just to get a cheaper Icon?? What is an extra $200 million when the prize is several $Billions??

855 comprises 1,674sqk, bigger than 218, and you can bet your proverbials that Halifax-1 will not be the last well drilled in that area. ICN will still own 40% of it.