What is happening ?

There is a saying "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity."
I tend to not see vast conspiracies and people pulling strings when the simpler explanation is management made a fatal decision to move into a bad resource at possibly the worst time possible for the sector so there was less than zero tolerance for mistakes.
Not all deals work for both parties.. It's not the first time I've seen a junior enter into drilling that didn't look justified or feasible and the other party coming off much better.
I also don't think Conoco would have walked away if GB had any really interesting indications.

Not only CoP but CP walked as well.
Nothing there.