Big Week?, page-6

"I don't have any hard evidence that this is the case but it makes sense of why CNE suddenly pulled the pin on drilling when the entire programme was designed to prove up commerciality. AIMO DB"

There is no evidence that CNE suddenly pulled the pin or on their own ,we don't know Petrosens veiw which when added to CNE's WI makes up 50% , once DOC is declared and moves beyond appraisal to development Petrosen have to pay their way, so from the other JV partners perspective the less appraisal the quicker we stop having to carry them.
Its certainly likely CNE as operator would have the final say in a tied situation .

FAR very early on suggested there were merits for both continuing or not.

The merits for continuing would be an earlier DOC and using the Athena while it was there.

The merits for halting are based around gathering the huge amount of data and make the best decisions on future drilling and how many more appraisal wells were actually needed also possibly get a better deal on the next round of drilling.

Personally I prefer the later as a few months delay in DOC would have almost no bearing on the overall time to production and the more they understand the better the decisions.

The reallities are we have no idea on the reasons for most decisions and what the various JV members actually think..

Cheers Whisky