RE: The whining You are correct Athena is the main focal point of ill-confidence. However it is very very important to note the following as far as GSA is concerned going forward, there ara few major differences from Athena:
- Ithaca is drilling deviated almost horizontal wells ( Athena most wells are vertical)
- Ithaca is not re-completing existing wells ( Athena was mainly a recompletion of old wells to reduce cost)
- Stella the field is at higher pressure with natural drive – no reliance on ESP’s ( Electrical Submersible Pumps) ( Athena relies on ESP’s and water injection which always has higher risk of variation of rates)
- They may frac the Stella wells for deliverability ( Athena was conventional perforation)
- They will clean up test the rates on each well after drilling on Stella and therefore be able to drill an additional well if rates are not where they want them ( Athena they did not clean up test – again the contracts for drilling were in a lowest cost possible solution environment). We also have a longer term drilling contract with multiple well options unlike Athena
Those are the main differences from Athena, although overall they have a whole number of changes which make Stella many times different from Athena
So the upshot is that Ithaca as developer/operator has a very high probability of achieving the gross production rate of 30K and them getting 16K of that for themselves. Couple that with a 4000 - 6000 bbls of production acquisition and you have production at some point in 2014 in the range of (6500 +5000+16000) 23000 - 27000 bbls. IF this boe production rate is achieved, the math to value the share price is easy.