they definitely won't get a cashflow positive, forward funded,...

they definitely won't get a cashflow positive, forward funded, majority high grade acreage owning company on the cheap. There'll be no on market way either as Austin and crew own >40%.

Agree with getting cbm into production first as the horizontals are cheaper, but i think what IGAS have done in the exploratory stage also makes sense: drill deep vertical to get both Coal and Shale core samples at the same time. They can save money on rig transport and setup, permits and traffic management that way. Not to mention deal with the unwashed fewer times. You can also drill the exploratory in a way where you can convert it to pilot production easily, on the cbm side anyway; not sure if fracking wells require different engineering.