I haven't heard this rumour about the possibility of a WPL bid...

I haven't heard this rumour about the possibility of a WPL bid for HDR in the very near future - are you able to advise more?

Insofar as the continuing drilling program is concerned, the legal/financial side of the operation is that the expensive drillship has been chartered, either at so much for a period of time, for so many wells, or at a day rate. This state-of-art vessel could cost the consortium anywhere up to $1M per day to operate, so loss of a big charter represents big money to the vessel owners.

If this drilling program should be curtailed, except perhaps for force majeure (i.e. something beyond control), the drillship operators will require restitution for lost charter/income time, and the suppliers of the mountain of stores already committed to support these large deep water drilling operations will want their payments.

The logistics planning and prepositioning/shipping of stores for each well is a monumental operation on its own, and likely the stores for future wells might be sitting somewhere in the region ready for the rig tenders to load, eg, lengths of casing.

Sometimes it may be just as cheap to continue as to stop and disband. So, I wouldn't expect anything to halt operationally at mauritania due to oil company manoeuvrings, if these should occur.

Regards