I think you are referring to a bygone era which is epitomised by images of the old "gushers" as being the sign of a successful well being struck.
These days with decades of drilling and completion experience under the belt and environmental regulations being what they are, a well that gushes to the surface would probably be considered by most to be a disaster from both the environmental and drilling/completion management points of view, because all sorts of safety and engineering controls would have had to have failed for that to occur.
The early wells obviously got the "easy" oil, although if i understand o&g history, you still had to know what you were looking for in order to successfully "stumble" on the easy oil.
Today the more difficult oil is being exploited successfully at a pretty high success rate with the use of modern techniques - witness the explosion of US onshore o&g development to the extent where the US is possibly going to be self-sufficient for a while within the next decade. Who ould have thought that 10 years ago when peak oil theorists were getting all the airplay?
Today's gushers are wells which produce IPs of anything over 1000 bopd depending on where you are talking about and the well capex cost. There is still plenty of oil left, it takes a nose to sniff out where it is (which TB is good at) and then get it out (which the company needs to improve on).
Cheers, Sharks.
PS: 3 new wells to be producing by the end of Jan, once little creatures has been fracced...hopefully 2014 will be a better year for the company and us shareholders!
SSN Price at posting:
2.3¢ Sentiment: Hold Disclosure: Held
