sack the board, page-8

It doesn't need a miracle from Surprise. It just needs geology. That's the great thing, it's (almost) totally out of JH's bumbling hands.

I largely agree with the negative comments on the company itself, I see Surprise 1ST1 as basically a coin toss. Either it'll flow commercial oil, or it won't.

Hard to say exactly what the odds are but I'd hazard 50-50. Oil is there and there is at least some perm including some good perm despite not even being in the primary target. The big unknowns are how big the deposit is, whether it's fully saturated and whether the structure is full to spill point.

As for the rest, well, we'll never know why JH thought "OIL FLOW LIKELY" followed by a botched cap raising was a good idea, or indeed why he defied decades of industry practice in drilling JW before Surprise.

But the fate of Surprise is now in the hands of the drill crew and in geology that was laid down hundreds of millions of years ago (long before any of us, with the possible exception of CB). Of course if it fails, Good Oil and the rest will probably be saying "I told you so" even though they have no more clue about what's down there than anybody else.

If S-1ST1 fails then sure, the company is in trouble. I haven't decided what I'll do if that happens but I'll probably just bottom-drawer my shares and forget them, because I still see two big positives for CTP:

1. Sheer number of conventional targets, I honestly believe they can't all be dry.

2. Just in the last six months the shale gas industry has surprised me very much. Beach, Adelaide, Baraka - the action is hotting up. Good results from any of these pioneers could start a real shale gas rush in which, no matter what you think of CTP, you'd have to admit their huge acreage is an advantage for any major.

Also Good Oil, I can't think of any reason why results should be delayed til March, unless you're talking about weather, and even then, it seems highly unlikely. Once they're on site (which they already are) only major flooding is going to impact them and those major rains don't usually start til January. The sidetrack should take 3-4 weeks which should leave them about 4 weeks leeway.

Unless the rig falls over again, of course.

But I'd say somebody will have their "I told you so" moment by the end of the year...