carbonblack, nothing in the announcement indicates any money to...

carbonblack, nothing in the announcement indicates any money to NSE. Nothing in the announcement indicates any obligation for PetroChina to spend any incremental capex beyond what Conoco was already obligated to spend.

This agreement looks like Conoco cutting potential losses given current drilling problems, which honestly confuses me and disappoints me. I would have wanted Conoco to see through the current drill problems and actually increase their spend because they believed in the project potential. This is the opposite of what I wanted to see.

What I do like here is that if we ever get contingent or proven reserves, we are setting up a potential bidding war between deep pocketed firms who won't want to share the prize. That doesn't help us any today.