Cjames, I'll have a go but dates and timeframes are beyond me now.
HDR's campaign in Mauritania was similar for the following reasons:
1/ Offshore drilling (but far more frontier risk than for Neon) 2/ Two drills in quick succession, about 30 days apart.
3/ HDR was very much a junior with a minor amount of production (less than Neon)
4/ Similar market cap at the time of drilling.
Major differences include:
1/ Low price of oil, around mid 20's when HDR drilled.
2/ Extremely limited infrastructure in place for HDR, basically none.
3/ High sovereign risk at Mauritania
4/ HDR had limited ability to reduce risk, unlike Neon.
5/ Neons Cua-Lo is considerably bigger than HDR's initial discovery. Block 120 target is about the same size as HDR's discovery but Neon has a slightly bigger percentage of the jv.
6/ Neon has a more balanced portfolio of projects covering low to high risk.
7/ Neon has much stronger cash flow.
HDR declared a commercial discovery of approx 180MB(later reduced to 120MB) at Chinguetti, the sp went from 35c the day before to a peak that day of $1.10.
For the next month while their second well was drilling the sp was in range of about 95c- $1.30.
The second well was no good and the sp plunged to 45c before starting a recovery. For the next 12 months it hung around 60c.
As time progressed to production some 3.5 years later the sp climbed to $2 and had a number of cap raisings along the way.
It finally hit $2.50 as a result of the takeover offer and once absorbed the HDR story ended.
NEN Price at posting:
33.0¢ Sentiment: LT Buy Disclosure: Held