Classic buddy, going off on a misinformed rant without even...

Classic buddy, going off on a misinformed rant without even reading the posts you're replying to.

Of course Australia has 10,000 psi BOPs here - Santos was using them at Dukas. They weren't enough. As I already pointed out in this thread the Strike well only involved maximum pressures of 7,000 psi.

As I also already pointed out, the Strike rig with upgraded BOPs may be able to drill Dukas but it's contracted for a while. Even Strike will be waiting a while before they can go back and do appraisal drilling.

Santos will source 15k BOPs and an appropriate rig in good time. There is more to rig capability than just BOPs and it sounds like from what STO said, the rig they were using, even with 15k BOPs, would have been pushing the safety margins. This is not just a cost issue, lives are very much at stake if they get things wrong and this is not a time-critical well. The gas has been there hundreds of millions of years, it's not going anywhere and even after it's proven up, it's stranded for years until a pipeline is built. There is absolutely zero incentive to risk lives to get a result here.

From what we've heard, Santos are encouraged by Dukas and are looking to follow it up as much as is practical. There is loads of competition for capital at Santos at the moment, with Qld CSG, Narrabri, Dorado, Cooper, NT shale, PNG and more all vying for exploration dollars. For Dukas to be in the picture at all is very promising IMO.