Contamination, page-2

I asked the exact same questions and here is the Reply below:
Basically what we have seen is heavy gas in the mudlog whist drilling through the HRZ and because of the nature of the rock (tight) it is highly unlikely that this has migrated in from somewhere else so therefore it has been generated from the HRZ (theoretically) – meaning that the HRZ core material should have indications of oil/condensate. Whilst we were drilling, we did see these indications so that was like a 1 + 1 = 2 situation – all made sense.

When we got the core to the surface, these shows were not evident in the rock chips taken when the core was cut into sections. So then we look at why the gas could have these heavy fractions - could be a result of contamination in the mud but the variability in gas/shows as we have been drilling does not indicate this to an extent that would explain the lack of shows at surface. Has the core been flushed by mud? Uncertain – but logic would say that this would also be unlikely for the same reason that the gas cannot migrate into this material – too tight. So there has to be another explanation – like the rock is not as tight as we think – that would be very positive for the play on the larger acreage position. Or something else we have not thought of. The region we are in has some pretty unique characteristics, which is why we theorised that the play could work here – unique does not always mean good though!

The only real way we will be able to determine the reason for this is in the lab – so we have sent samples of everything, the mud, isotubes of the gas, the core for analysis.

The heavy gas/condensate has to be coming from somewhere near the bottom of the hole (as most of the hole is now behind casing) so we are confident that we are close on the thermal maturity – meaning that on the 270k acres we have, a large portion will be in the thermal maturity Sweetspot – so the play remains intact as does the upside.

Still have to tick other boxes like permeability, pressure etc – again, these are tests that can only be done in the lab.

The conventional looks very promising also and we are well funded for the seismic so in a very good position, in my view.

Understandably, people were confused by the announcement yesterday – but that is because there are some things that remain unknown and perhaps there was an expectation there would be a better understanding at this stage.