Hi Craw....
Why is Mandurah inflicting on himself such pain whilst analyzing world views that even the most learned analysts seem to always get wrong?
Because FAR remains my only oiler left in my portfolio after culling it down from half a dozen
some 12-18 months ago....sometimes you make the right call. In my case, too rarely. The macro
has worried me for quite a while. My sentiment around the micro {Far}, remains the same as it
has always been, albeit impacted on what transpires at the macro level.
I miss the days when drilling for oil equated to drilling for something valuable & sought after.
Black Gold, Texas tea. When you struck oil, you really had hit the jackpot...in the good ol' days.
These days it seems if you are even lucky enough to find it, the general vibe seems to be that we've
struck another turd. Finding something that nobody seems to want. I know I'm over-simplifying
it but that's my general "feel" at the moment, despite my unwavering confidence in the 2 finds
that FAR have achieved. I trust that the POO will turn around. Barring a major conflict or disruption
to supply I think the only way that can come about is through the price being manufactured by default...
the same way interest rates have been manipulated and manufactured...by the "powers" that be. It
will not come about by a demand factor imo. Anyway, enough of my postulating, what will be will be.
What happened to the Mandurah that would give us all in depth oil province/field/well information?
Yes, I remember the days when I was up to my eyeballs in Cenomanian & Turonian source rocks,
Upper Cretacious deep water turbidite fan systems,, Albian & Carbonate reservoirs, Atlantic
Transform Margins et al. The geology part has always interested me. In regards to where we are
at at this stage of proceedings we are fortunate to have Ya & JP commenting on the technical side
of drill/reservoir operations. I could not possibly hope to add anything new to their exhaustive detail.
I would like to collate my thoughts around the SNE reservoir only and our likelihood of success.
What are our chances? What are the odds? What is the likelihood of SNE delivering commercial
quantities of oil {forget the POO for the moment}. I don't want to go over old ground, but I will,
one last time, before the fate of SNE is known.
1. Analogy to the Gulf Of Mexico when Africa separated from South America circa 80-100m years
ago.
2. Mature and Prolific source rocks.....confirmed.
3. Anoxic climate conditions long after the continents had "settled" in their current positions,
aiding the oil process, particularly in regard to the integrity of the all important reservoirs/traps.
4. A huge tributary flowing out of Senegal, depositing rich organic turbidite fans.
5. SNE delivers light oil with "textbook" pressure regimes. OWC and gas cap contributing to
great natural reservoir pressure.
6. The flat egg theory, hopefully confirmed upon the drilling of Bellatrix.
7. The Thin sands together with 6 above that will hopefully push us to 500-670m boo.
I could go on. We have a lot going for us in terms of the odds of success with SNE. Nothing
however is mandated. What are the risks? Ya and others would be more qualified to comment
on this but as I see it......The risks v the positives as outlined above are ;
1. Lack of interconnectivity between the sands.
2. Compartments or blockages within the sands.
3. Collapse of pressure regimes after an extended flow test.
There may be others, but IF just SNE can jump these hurdles and arrive at 500m or so boo
after the initial 3 well program then surely {regardless of the POO at the time}, we will
NOT lose money, regardless if Upper Bellatrix, FAN/BEER and ALL other remaining prospects
are failures. That is all I am concerned with at the moment.
I had done some exhaustive research on our prospects in GB some months ago, but with the
continuing poor outlook for the POO I lost heart in posting it. The prospects excited &
intrigued me, unlike the sentiment around "our" commodity. I will keep the research under
wraps for fear of possibly jinxing the upcoming A&E program. I am keen to re visit GB after
hopefully, successful appraisal results.
There is one last thing that has been ringing in my ears lately and it relates more to the
possible sleeping giant beneath the highly promising shelf plays....FAN/BEER. For
a bit of nostalgia I revisited FAR TV Group Discussion with Aqua, R2D2 and Dennis,
recorded almost a year ago now on December 7th 2014. I know this fact was confirmed
some months ago in I think Cairns CMD presentation and I made note of it in a post on
HC. For some reason, it has been re-appearing in my thoughts {the positive ones}. I don't
know what it all means but it's a good note I think to leave on in regards to positives v risks
AFTER discovering oil in the first place.
I said ;
" The particular Turonian/Turbidite Fan play that was confirmed in the Jubilee discovery
and is the same play targeted at FAN/BEER, has disappointed outside the Tano Basin in
Ghana. Several exploration wells targeting the play have failed to make a petroleum discovery
while the few oil discoveries outside the Tano Basin are not large enough to be commercial.
Mercury & Narina discoveries targeting this play {32m & 41m of net oil pay on discovery}
failed to produce commercial quantities of oil. This just highlights the risks involved in
appraisal even after the promising initial discoveries. The general consensus however is that
a major part of the problem was that oil companies that were early into this Turonian/Turbidite
Fan play were focused on finding cretacious reservoirs with stratigraphic traps without realising
the importance of the structural component of Jubilee's Traps. The Jubilee complex is bounded by
a series of up dip faults or structural traps that provide part of the trap only. The other 2 sides
being bounded by stratigraphic traps. ie Large Turbidite Fan Systems. What has made Jubilee a
world class oil field is that these faults are syn depositional ---these faults have occurred at the same time as the sediment was being deposited, allowing a thick sand reservoir to be accumulated on
the down-thrown side of the fault."
Cairns CMD ; {Not verbatim} The FAN/BEER reservoir is confirmed as consisting of a stratigraphic
as well as a structural trap.
GLTAH
Expand