It wasn't two different boards. JH was thrown off the board when he wanted to drill another well. RC replaced him. The same board continued, and continues to this day, although most have been rotated out now with the last to go soon.
If RC believed that drilling a second well at Surprise was a good idea when JH wanted to, it was too late - the rig was released and seismic was started by the time RC started working. And even if he had wanted to go into drilling it immediately, the others would have stopped him as they needed to save face.
Here's the point - JH (and several senior staff members) wanted to drill immediately, when the rig was on site, to save on mob/de-mob expenses and have a second well producing ASAP while in the testing phase (and especially one that had the horizontal drilled properly, at full length, and in the zone). The board ruled instead to wait and do more seismic, even though it would take months on a waiting list to get another drill.
Was there a funding shortage at the time? Yes! Was it possible for management to have sourced further funding? Well, if you can't get funds when you have found oil, when is it going to work for you?
But one thing that doesn't seem to have been discussed much is that problems between the chairman and JH seems have started right after RC finished up with all the fights at Nexus in Nov 2011, and was available for hire.
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