I definitely see a trend Anatol ... so you now don't like the Wycross comparison anymore?
As to the "crap" about adjoining acres.... do you not recall Penn Virginia (PVA) and its acquisition of acreage from MHR
easy to find: http://www.slideshare.net/PennVirginiaCorp/pva-eagle-ford-acquisition-18109352
This presentation by PVA goes over the "Strategic Rational"
Slide 3 talks about Transaction Value - guess what, it doesn't fluff about on $$$/acre. It talks about REAL VALUE as in the 1P Reserves, the BOEPD of production and actual earnings it generates.
Slide 4 reference "adjacent acreage" as part of the strategic rational for the acquisition. Apparently some very large shale E&P think that's important.
Anyway, what's this about predictions? The entire "Success Shares" issuance is predicated on prediction of EUR.
Of course D&C costs come down as the operator drills and understands his acreage (factory). But you are comparing against EOG and MRO and such who are all running multiple rigs year round.
EOG even owns a frac sand plant and reduces its completion costs considerably.
And while you may bold and use large font for
"The production technology is getting better by longer horizontal lateral drilling (allows drilling of less wells on the same acreage) and more proppant usage (allows more oil recovery)"
that is not universally true. Since we are quoting EOG:
"In recent months, says Papa, EOG has come to the conclusion that instead of the “longer, skinnier” fracks that it had been drilling into the Eagle Ford, it’s now moving toward “shorter, fatter fracks” that reach a radius of just 300 feet from the wellbore, but completely pulverize all the rock in the area. A tighter radius means you can fit more wells in a given field and hopefully get more oil out — boosting that all-important recovery rate."