Gassed, You can't compare , at this stage, a conventional target...

Gassed,

You can't compare , at this stage, a conventional target vs an unconventional target. Yes, the shale is thicker and has more gas, no question. But that is not how these projects are evaluated.

It's all about return on investment. We don't know what flow rates can be achieved in the shales, so it may be that they are not economic at current gas price or with current technology. That's why some of the shale's in the states get shut-in. Higher costs to produce than what they get generate in revenue and that doesn't take into account the cost to drill. What we know about the shale is you have to drill a bootload of wells and frac every bit you can to provide the permeability to flow and degass. In conventional targets, you could simply drill one well to drain the reservoir, depending on the permeability.

so while one target is clearly smaller, it could pay out in a year or two (just an example) whereas the other could pay out in 20+ years, or never.

it would be more productive to compare the cb to what shale gas acreages are going for in the states, dry gas to dry gas shales, liquids rich to liquids rich, etc.