Ann: Trading Halt, page-84

618,
Thanks for your comments. I essentially agree with much of what you are saying. As for Macca, well that’s in your ballpark and I certainly won’t disagree. I suspect they had their own agendas as to why they offer little if any valuation for exploration upside. The point of my last post was actually very simple. Flow testing will be the true value maker or breaker, dependent of course of results from wireline logging first to enable justifying spending more money to flow test. Nothing more to my comment than that.

The comment you make about compartmentalisation is extremely important. Whilst I am certainly not comparing SE to WE; one important point ( I think I am right in this) is WE was 3D seismic? and SE was 2D seismic. I know from discussions with geophysicists in my career that 2D seismic does not show vertical movement ( displacement leading to compartmentalisation) nearly as clearly as 3D. In fact, I remember reading in a STX quarterly report 3 or 4 years ago basically saying that caution should be applied to 2D because of this particular issue I just raised above. I can’t remember if ED 1 is 3D or 2D, perhaps you could let me know.

P.S. As I have been involved in exploration ( not oil and gas) all my career I certainly don’t take the Macca approach! The amount of times I have given presentations to Boards, requesting funding for exploration projects, I have lost count. On success through exploration the value add can be very significant. The risks are obviously higher, but can be mitigated by own and competitor drilling nearby, quality seismic datasets and smart and interrogative geological interpretation. STX have proven to be very adept at this and let’s hope it continues. Wouldn’t miss the highs and lows of exploration for quids!