I tracked down ans spoke to a friend who I had allot to do with...

I tracked down ans spoke to a friend who I had allot to do with when I was in the investment industry (I'll keep that general).

My friend who I just got off the phone to is a Petroleum Geolgist running an Oil & Gas company which operates onshore in the USA.

Not surprisingly he knew the terrain well nad this is what he had to say.

1. Salt Domes are high grade targets with an impressive history.

2. Its a strength that VIL is on the opposite side of the Salt Dome to most of most of the producing fields. This just improves the risk profile.

3. An intial flw rate of 1,800,000 cft of gas and 50 bbls of Condensate is a good result but of course needs to be tested over time intervals and choke sizes.

4. So far the well has been a standard off the shelf affair and thats terrific from a cost and engineering point of view.

5 Given the low cost of drilling this well te current result if maintained should have be commercial. Wasn't much doubt in his mind.

6. He said, the punters never cease to disappoint him in terms of their recations to early results. He said even if the flow drops off it doesn't mean you throw the tow in as most wells actually require stimulation to get them running. The fact that tis one is flowing quite nicely without stimulation is a big bonus. He suspects that with some low cost stimulation it may open right up and realy flow.

7. With higher oil zones he wouldn't be surprised that assuming the gas is put into production that the company opts to avoid the technical and risk challenges of trying to also bring higher oild zones into production at the same time by opting to drilling another cheap well nearby down to the oil horizon and bringing it into production (assuming sucessful testing) in its own well. Much cleaner and easier and safer all round. Good cost benefit from doing this on most occassions.

8. He actually didn't have a single negative. Thought it was straigh forward stuff and all the signs were that we were sitting on a commercial discovery and that would not be a big surprise given the region the company is drilling in (salt domes).

"your on a winner I reckon" was his closing comments.

Basically it locked in with my own opinion but its nice to have an expert reaffirm your belief.

It is of course never over until its over but so far the signs are very good.