merrill lynch

Just got hold of Merrill's reaction

...Mahogany comes in BIG, further upside yet to be tested...Tullow has this morning announced that the Mahogany-1 exploration well, offshore Ghana, has likely made by far the largest oil discovery in the company's
history. To date the well has been drilled to a depth of 3,683m and has
encountered a gross hydrocarbon column of 270m with 95m of net stacked pay. With no oil:water contact having yet been encountered the company intends to drill the well a further c500m to test several additional prospective reservoir horizons. Drilling is expected to be completed within the next two weeks, but already we estimate the company to have discovered a gross c300mb of light oil, with an additional c300mb+ of upside still to be tested. Subject to rig availability, Tullow is now likely drill up to four Mahogany appraisal wells in 2008/9 aimed at
further delineating this potentially vast structure....

Increasing NAV to 485p/sh
Price Objective 535p/sh

ML also say ...Tullow has identified a host of further exploration leads and prospects across its acreage which it is considering testing over the next three years (of which only a further 2 are included in our NAV). We would highlight, however, that pre-drill Mahogany was distinguished on Tullow's 3-D seismic interpretation as having a very bright amplitude anomaly, which the company has not yet identified across these other leads and prospects...

So caveat emptor.