always ask the question

With oil and gas stocks you need to always ask the question, what if the drill fails . It is best to invest on oil and gas stocks that have big upside but also a core business that underwrites most or all of the share price .
Good examples include TAP drilling starfish and CUE drilling Naga Utara and Cooper drilling Hammamet west
In oil cases 70-100% of SP was backed by core value , revenue producing assets
My biggest mistake in oil and gas in 15 years was to deviate from this approach and invest in an exploration ( although it was positioned as development ) company (RIA)
As others have said , don't give up , just learn from mistake and always work out downside as most exploration wells will fail so downside more likely to materialise