Ann: Hydrocarbon gas recovered & evaluation program forward plan, page-1227

@Gharp .... "Hence why I wish SM just come out and say they made a 15mil dollar mistake by drilling too deep and that the side track should mitigate these issues"

I'd also like to know why the mistake was made. There must have been a reason to go deeper instead of just logging, taking samples and lining the Upper Angwa while conditions were good.

Even I know from other companies that drilling into virgin ground is full of risks of the unknown, so if I, a nobody without any O&G industry experience would have stopped and gained samples before going deeper, (if I'd been in charge), as that is what's important to the owners of the company, then why did SM take the risk to go deeper??

@Davy Boy .. we never made it to the Lower Angwa in Mk1, so had no idea about pressures, hence it was foolish to go deep when we could have accessed samples, then gone deeper and still had the side track up our sleeves if anything went wrong.

If the excuse is, it costs more to do it the 'safe' way, or that the MDT tool might not have been ready in time for gathering from LA, sorry I don't buy it. That's a lack of understanding the stock market..

The most important aspect is clearly to gain a discovery that pushes up share price, making cap raising or farming out much easier. The discovery was, and is paramount in such a large basin, not trying to gain as much information as possible in one hole. The cash to drill plenty of holes comes after discovery, NOT from lots of information but no discovery..

It's overall, a combination of all the O&G expertise plus (and it's a big PLUS) stockmarket dynamics of junior explorers.