Dry holes vs wells with shows - From release information the two...

Dry holes vs wells with shows - From release information the two wells Cheetima-1 drilled by Beach and the VPE Snatcher 1 are about the same depth and though not in the same local, they would penetrate similar rocks. So comparing the 2 drilling times is fair.

However the number of days taken to drill a dry hole is completely different than a discovery. When a well encounters shows the well drilling is slowed to collect finer information (I won't bore you with the mechanics) and in some cases if an oil-water-contact (OWC) is expected the operator will drill .5m, circulate rocks samples to the surface and analyse these before drilling another .5m. The drill rate may slow to less than 1 m and hour (as opposse to 50-100 m/hr in a dry hole). When a sufficient amount of porous rock with shows (and no sign of a water contact), a DST will be called.
Since a DST was called during drilling, before logs; one has to assume they had good shows and slowed down. The DST was was announced 11 days after spud so it is hard to tell if they got to the zone in 7 days and slowed down or whether they took a little longer than Beach.

Regardless, if one is going to find fault with operators it can hardly be about drilling times though since all the Cooper operators drill the wells almost identically and with the same stable of drill rigs. The evaluation of a well differs from operator to operator with much heated discussion but the mechanics of drilling to the zone are very vanilla.