p2 & beyond, page-9

Ya, great post - many thanks.

Throwing my positive cap on, I speculate that it was COP's decision to drill a well to determine the extent of the structure rather than drilling KR1 to prove she will flow. If this is the case, COP are 100% certain that Poseidon will not only flow, but she will gush

Purely speculation on my behalf as the only people who knows the inside decisions are the COP insiders. Nonetheless, common exploration well position is to:

(1) Drill close to the crest as HC migrates upwards, so if there's no HC there, you can quickly write off the whole play and move on (unless they miss on the wrong side of the fault lines that is - which has happened many times before by even the best riggers)

(2) Drill down dip to determine the extent of the HC charge. This is tricky because you run the risk of stepping out too far. So P2 was a success in that it did delineate some of the reservoir, though the precise boundary of the HC charge in the C sand is still unknown since it was water wet at P2), and as Ya pointed out, they also managed to analyse the gas content (with the key being low CO2 and presence of heavy gas/condensate)

(3) Once you have established the aereal extent of the reservoir and recalibrated the 3D model to the drill data, it should give you some pretty good indication of the size of the discovery - and this is where P2 failed in that the missing piece of the jigsaw puzzle was the flow rate as it would have enabled them to ascertain some critical reservoir info such as reservoir pressure, etc. Anyway, the next logical step (after delineating the field boundary) is to drill the optimal production location and see how effective the reservoir is in moving the HC.

Personally, I was disappointed with the lack of flow data, but I still hold as I do believe the long term story of this play. Of course, I've already assumed a 50-60% drop to $3 if K does not flow (as my worst case scenario). Given the past 2 failures to flow test the reservoir, K has effectively become an all-or-nothing well as far as many holders are concerned I suspect.

Time will tell as always :o)

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