RE:FWIW ... a few points from today's PRHi Nefty, I too am an explorationist with 35 years of experience...I agree with you on the purpose of Strat Test wells, I tried to point this out on this board before. Many contributors to this board, and many on the Reddit board were thinking that because Recon claimed they were using the seismic to refine their drilling locations, that meant that Recon was homing in on specific hydrocarbon traps defined by the seismic. It is way too early to start "picking targets", I believe their Strat Tests are still meant to establish the depth to basement and try to identify which stratigraphic intervals can be mapped regionally using the seismic. Note that their press release specifically mentions that next few wells are also Strat Tests...
BTW, don't read too much into the Recon statements that their well hit all geological targets - they never said what their targets were! It's like E&P companies saying that their wells "exceeded internal production models". Lol!
And lastly, I don't agree with you about DSTs - they are used all the time, they are safe and reliable and give reservoir fluid and pressure data at a far lower cost than casing a well and completing it later. Casing a Strat well without running a DST first would be very unusual! (And does Recon even have a service rig in Namibia to do the well completion after casing?)
Note also that their PR says they are logging and "coring" - maybe sidewall cores again? They're not planning any flow tests at this time.
so it's not really a negative PR, it's way too early to be thinking about commercial oil, let alone "gushers". It's a long game.
Oh yeah, one more thing - in the classification of wells as "oil", "gas", "dry hole", Strat Tests are their own category. They are not included as dry holes in a calculating a company's success rate. It was a wise choice to call Thor wells Strat Tests!
cheers!