new drill time frame, page-5

Ya,

Not sure if they will drill ahead with 11 ppg mud weight used to balance the kick as it may fracture the formation and induce mud losses below the zone which kicked.

After testing the BOP once the new casing has been cemented, they will most likely do another leak off test to determine formation fracture pressure and adjust the mud weight to drill ahead based on that. My guess is they will have enough of the lower density mud on board that they would just have to add the weighting agent to in order to drill ahead.

They can always weight up further reasonably quickly in case it kicks again but it would be more time consuming to strip out the weighting agent or change the mud over to a lower density if the higher mud weight induces fractures in the formation.

What would spice things up is if they start to take losses and kicks simultaneously. As you said, slow and steady and with safety the utmost priority now.

Always enjoy reading your posts.