re: how long? - pennynut It will probably take 50 years to fully...

re: how long? - pennynut It will probably take 50 years to fully evaluate as you never know a reservoir's true potential until you have sucked every last barrel out of it. As an industry analyst I can tell you that most people are confusing the issue here. You can't give a definitive answer to a target's potential with 1 well - it normally takes 100s of wells.

What NEO and OPL have said is that they will use follow-up wells to target individual zones. The reason for this is because in California it is illegal to produce from multiple zones simultaneously. You must start with the deepest and they move to shallower zones once deeper zones are depleted.

Therefore if the deepest zone flows, you just put it on production. Why would you go to the extra expense of testing other zones with that well when you can only produce from 1 zone at a time?

IMO, it boils down to this.

1) We have 2 discoveries
2) Going to evaluate the extent of the oil zones with extra appraisal wells
3) Going to drill extra wells into the Echegoin gas zones as a priority because they are cheap to drill and we can get it on production quickly

And I guarantee the sp will be in positive territory either later today or tom once this news filters through to the sophisticated oilers