psi81,I think you might be right my friend. I was reading...

psi81,

I think you might be right my friend. I was reading through CTP's older announcements and was reminded about something very poignant that you alluded to in your post.

Central's announcement on the 21st of November stated that they were going to:

"sidetrack to one side of the lower part of the existing well bore to get fresh reservoir through existing oil shows for testing and evaluation. Following the rig incident in December 2010, the section of existing well bore through various promising oil shows has been exposed to slightly overweight mud for approximately 10 months to date which would undoubtedly have caused formation damage."

The key parts of this announcement that I allude to and what psi81 mentioned in his post was that the delay could have been because of the MDT's being affected by the mud in the formation. I think this is extremely significant because whilst everyone bashes JH and CTP for something that has not been announced yet, it is in all possibility that they are trying to sort out the data and derive what they can from the damaged hole. They also have to discern whether or not they will continue with drilling to TD or begin the horizontal legs.

Given good logs on what they CAN recover, then perhaps they may well decide that horizontal drilling may still be the go.

In any case, the announcement detailing the change in direction for Surprise (24th November 2011), details that they would no longer sidetrack, but drill right through, run casings and horizontally drill or use "high angle directional bores"

On that note, psi, if you would, could you give me an opinion on the latter? What benefit are "high angle directional bores" in our case as you see it? For a larger column of oil (say the 20m we've encountered), assuming the logs come back with acceptable saturation, porosity and permeability, would you horizontally drill or use the angled bores?

Thanks guys and good luck to holders.

RB