Athena SNE 3, page-51

Re the expected size of SNE plus the comments by Simon Thompson after the completion of the SNE-2 appraisal it must be remembered that he is a Scotsman and a lawyer to boot so he will not be drawn to making excessively enthusiastic remarks about anything and especially something like the expected size of SNE!!!

However Far kinda let the ‘cat out of the bag’ re the expected size of SNE when they stated the following in the Q&A released on the 10^th Dec 2014:

If there are 330mmbbls of recoverable oil* as estimated by the Operator this will clearly be a commercial project. The value of each barrel of oil will be relatively high due to the moderate capital costs and the attractive fiscal terms that FAR has secured in Senegal

I realise there is an ‘if’ there however just stating that should indicate to everyone that SNE is a lot larger than the JV is letting on. I will let everyone calculate what the above means however, as far as I am aware, the above has not been previously raised on HC, am also sure management would have seriously considered the wording of the Q&A prior to its release so to include the above statement at all is, IMO, quite a pointer to the eventual size of the SNE discovering (Tony please take note)

We can there for summise that Aqua’s comments re the whispers of the size of SNE are quite possibly correct!!!

As far as releasing news, FAR management made it quite clear that the tight hole policy would be in place, further to that if you look at the history as how and when Cairn make ann’s when performing a series of appraisals you will find that they normally make a single statement at the end of the drilling and I therefore don’t expect anything meaningful until either SNE-3 results are known but more than likely at the completion of the BEL-1 exploration well as this will also test the SNE structure, it also gives the JV more time to evaluate what they have discovered and draw more conclusive results.

HKP