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Can't say I'm really pleased with the SP

[GreatSwami]

When WZR was drilling and things started to take much longer than expected and the SP dropped stepwise down from its peak at around $2.75 I traded some dips and pops and got out before it dropped below $2. Since I had got in at C
.71-C
.75 I still did OK - and of course it was only much later that the rumours of hole problems (severe) were confirmed and then the bad news about gas condensates rather than oil.

In a way I begin to wonder if something similar could be happening here? The only thing missing is a lack of any great run up in SP prior to and during early drilling? In WZR I almost tripled my money - here at Vast I am breaking even to being under water this past few days.

Nothing has changed from last week - or two weeks ago - except that we should be deeper? The IR department (from memory of a prior post) suggests that they have two sets of Casing Strings left to run (after having run the 13 3/8" string at 1650m). Obviously they would not run the first of those two casing strings (the 9 5/8") unless they had to in order to shut off hole problems. After running the 9 5/8' casing they are then left with the 7" casing as their last option to shut off further hole problems and then they would drill ahead with a 6 1/8" Bit but with that they will not go too far. If they run into troubles on the 6 1/8" hole they can run a 5 1/2" liner - and thats it - they are done drilling.

Any Casing string run would use up something like a week of time as they would have to get the hole safe for wireline logging, get the logs run, run and cement the casing and then get ready to drill out again. Any hole troubles - and that would be the reason for running casing prematurely - could easily lead to a week or two of lost time fighting well kicks, mud losses to formation, stuck pipe and all that. All these problems are not the end of the World - but it sure gets wearing on the nerves.

I wish I would have waited for this kind of buying opportunity with the funds I used to buy more at C
.61 and C
.62. I actually sold my holdigs in WPX after their first pop up over C
.75 for some profit there. Since then WPX went down and then bounced up to over C
.80 while VST drops from C
.60-0.70 into the C
.50-0.60 range. Oh well - I guess I'm not the best bottom fisher I suppose?

I applaud those who were cautious enough to bail at higher prices here - I really have no answer to whether they will be proven right or wrong here - but as usual there are nearlyalways times to get back in once things get proven up.

Foolish or not I am still here - I remain for the reasons outlined before. All the indications are for an effective seal of the main reservoir zones. There is an overlying lighter oil porosity zone. It would be quite posible for them to have hit some free gas at the top of the Cretaceous - and that may be giving some grief in the drilling operations - but these sorts of things are not necessarily insurmountable.

Wish I knew which way the winds are blowing here - there's been a heck of a downdraft for a while - but these things can turn on a dime sometimes. Time for a change of wind direction here?

Good luck whichever way you play your hand. I'm still holding - but I would be lying if i didn't admit that I have come real close to pulling the trigger here - unfortunately I've been pretty busy and haven't been able to look in as often as i would have liked last couple of days.

GS