Surely now they'll try a sidetrack to get to that potential...

Surely now they'll try a sidetrack to get to that potential bonanza again at the bottom. Since they now know the formation pressures they should be able to go into the target zone underbalanced to avoid the formation damage they created first time around. The prize seems worth it to me. The alternative would seem to be keep moving up the hole until they get a good commercial flow. Maybe the forward plan should be to drill a bunch of shallow holes to, say, Queen City sands. Then when the cash is rolling in try the deeper big sands in a new well.