I spoke to a family friend who has worked on offshore rigs in...

I spoke to a family friend who has worked on offshore rigs in the US. He said that a normal exploration drill cost would include best estimates on over runs if there are problems so when quoting a time frame for drilling and cost it would be the maximum expected with foreseeable problems. If the well was stated to have drilled with no problems then he said it should be closer to the carry cost! i.e. if they said an estimate of USD73m 60days and finished in 45-50days the 45-50days is what they were expecting with no problems and was the basis for the capped carry cost of US33m + 7.5m back total 40.5m. He then said the reason the gap is nearly the same as the carry is they account for costs due to weather, problems in the drill, and the extra time. They cannot of course account for unbelievably bad situations but based on best estimates the USD73m is a worse case scenario.

He would expect if they have stated in an announcement that they have completed the drill and the time from SPUD to Completion was less than the max 60day as we know it is 45-50days and they stated it was a problem free drill but hit nothing that the well cost should be very close to the USD40.5m mark! If they have said all the above in the announcement and it isn't then there is something not adding up and they have either screwed up royally, have been shafted or are lying about something. He is of the opinion that it is unlikely they are lying etc etc but never say never.

So from someone who has worked off shore in exploration Im getting that based on their ann the costs should have come in around the USD40.5m mark meaning that TPT has no real costs.

He was interested in the conflicting statements from TPT and GALP i.e. TPT made a statement of "not favourable reservoir quality" where as GALP said "no hydrocarbons" these are not the same.

He also said that if the ann states they are sending the drill information off for analysis etc that maybe the suspension is because of this combined with the sudden drop in sp because if after the ann results come back that there may be actually something of value result wise and a lot of shareholders jumped on the basic ann it is in the best interest of the shareholders for them to suspend and protect shareholders from making a mistake and dumping the share.

However at the end of the day without being inside the "cone of silence" it is all an educated guess based on the little snippets of information available to us.

I should have called him ages ago to get his feel for it.