A minnow like Far was prepared to spend $12 million dollars on...

A minnow like Far was prepared to spend $12 million dollars on seismic....Shell the supermajor just effectively bought that same Siesmic for $3.5 miilion....remember that is $12 miilion that a minnow spent to get the seismic without knowing whether it was there or not...Shell the supermajor just spent $3.5 miilion buying proven siesmic data with a reasonable chance of a prospect being in place...they spend maybe another $1.5 million on CSEM which brings it to $5 million.

So again to summarise: Minnow spends $12 million to do seismic on unproven ground...Supermajor spends $5 million to firm up that same prospect....think about it..if a minnow can spend $12 million on an unproven propspect then $5 million to a supermajor with a reasonable prospect is just peanuts...really peanuts..it is an absolute no brainer for them..chuck $5 miilion at it and see what comes up...the real proof of the pudding will be if they are prepared to commit $65 million to drilling it..then you are talking about commitment and true interest..this is just a "lets have a look and see what happens..."