Is offshore Nam like drilling North Sea? Some posters have commented on the number of dry wells that was drilled in North Sea before commercial hydrocarbons were found.
The UK Continental Shelf Act came into force in May 1964. Seismic exploration and the first well followed later that year. It and a second well on the Mid North Sea High were dry, as the Rotliegendes was absent, but BP's Sea Gem rig struck gas in the West Sole field in September 1965.[4] The celebrations were short-lived because the Sea Gem sank with the loss of 13 lives after part of the rig collapsed as it was moved away from the discovery well.[4] Larger gas finds followed in 1966
Comparing discovery technologies from 1964 to what MM uses today is like comparing survivorability in a car crash built in 1964 to a 2013 crumple zone, air bag deployed car design of today. Marbles to basketballs..magnitudes of difference
The exploration of the North Sea has been a story of continually pushing the edges of the technology of exploitation (in terms of what can be produced) and later the technologies of discovery and evaluation (2-D seismic, followed by 3-D and 4-D seismic; sub-salt seismic; immersive display and analysis suites and supercomputing to handle the flood of computation required
Previously offshore wildcatting resulted in just 1 out of 8 wells drilled finding success, currently 1 in 3 find success.
Transocean Marianas started drilling the GoM Macondo Monster, absent a Tropical Storm, fingers crossed for drilling success with a Wingat Monster..or as MM puts it...elephant country