Well the chairman stated that they would be drilling 5 wells in...

Well the chairman stated that they would be drilling 5 wells in the next 18-24 months at the last AGM...

That means that with 9 months gone they are on the record as having plans to drill 4 more wells (after Gindara) within 9-15 months from now.

Given the planning cycle and long lead items required that means that they can't drill any sooner than 9 months from now and ideally would not drill before 12 months from now.

If each of the 4 wells is a 45 day well (and given that some wells are jack-up territory and some will require a mid water depth floater) they will have 180 Rig-days of drilling on two rigs in a 3 month window.

Given their demonstrated aptitude for managing a single jack-up I would imagine that a concurrent multi-well & multi-rig drilling operation would cause some concern (it concerns me).

So, safe to say unless the deal has been all but done to farm-out the remaining acreage and is finalised in the next month there is no way in the world that Nido can drill these 5 wells before May 2012. Even if that does happen it is a very remote possibility that NDO will meet their timeline.

p1000