Ann: Hydrocarbon gas recovered & evaluation program forward plan, page-1497

"So my understanding is that the mud weight will be lower in the sidetrack compared to the final mud weight that resulted from the high pressure zones at the base of the Lower Angwa. But it’s not necessarily going to be lower than the original mud weight used when we first penetrated the top of the Upper Angwa."

Mud weight will ideally be low enough to have a minimum of 200psi between mud hydrostatic and formation pressure.

"He also said that the water sample at 2197m was only able to be obtained because it was above the zone of differential sticking."

They were on drill pipe with the tool so differential sticking of the cable had been taken out of the equation.

"We’re only talking about a difference in mud weight of 20% based on the formation pressures that have been mentioned."

While maybe not completely removing any differential sticking any reduction in mud weight is going reduce the severity of same.

"And if you’re correct with the likely timescale on the CFA plot being 20sec ticks and 100sec major intervals, then they were only on station for 10min at 2934m before they almost got stuck. In my scenario above for the root cause of sticking, then I can’t see how a 20% lower mud weight would make much difference at all."

I dont think the complete CFA plot was presented in the announcement....the usual time annotations (usually in seconds) are absent.

"That’s why I’d love to know from Scott what his plan is. Stay and risk getting stuck, but be guaranteed of getting a sample. Or pull out straight away and sample on drill pipe which would have a much lower probability of success."

It's something you play by ear with the MDT tool in the hole. You can do a drop off test at first station and get a feel for how the hole is behaving. regular reciprocation of cable while on station will allow first indications of sticking to be picked up.