Ultimately you just have to put the well on extended production...

Ultimately you just have to put the well on extended production before you can know how it will decline. Deciding to pull up stumps early is one of those 50-50 calls that can only be proved right or wrong in hindsight.

Given what was known at the time I'm okay with the call. The facility is only capable of 15 TJ/d and with the existing production, PV13 rate is already overkill. If the well declines quickly enough that you need the extra rate provided by drilling further then chances are the extra drilling will decline similarly quickly and your well is already a commercial failure. So on a risk weighted basis I think it was the right call. The probability that drilling further is the difference between success or failure is IMO pretty low, and in the success case further drilling offers diminishing returns, so save the money.

Especially if it saved $4M, though that seems excessive to me. Did that number come from CTP? Generally by the time you're down to drilling the horizontal production hole most of the well costs are committed. I would have guessed it might have saved $1-2M. Happy to be corrected though.