RE: 2 Keys VanWilder1--
I found the same langauge intesting.
NeoM followed up quoting some other langauge:
""In the first quarter, HRT announced the spud-in of the Wingat-1, at PEL-23, the first offshore well in its three back-to-back drilling foreseen at its exploratory campaign this year. This well had a target to encounter the reservoirs of an Albian carbonate platform, which were hit at 4,050 m depth below the sea-level. HRT forecasts that the current activities in the Wingat-1 well will be concluded next week."
NeoM then posed the following question:
"I understand that they hit the reservoirs of the Albian carbonate. Am I wrong?"
Regarding NeoM's question, it seems likely to me that they are refering to the Albian carbonate platform as a potential hydrocaron reservoir and were noting that they hit the carbonate platform targeted without intending to discuss whether it contained a commercially developable accumulation of hydrocabon.
In other words, and although I am reticent to ascribe too much meaning to langauge that may have been translated and lost some of the more nuanced meaning in the process, it is my guess that they did not intend to tip their hand in any way concerning the Wingat results.
I base that guess in part on the langauge regarding Wingat that you quoted earlier, where it stated:
"The main objective of the well was to test the resource potential of the Albian (Cretaceous) carbonate platform that has a well-defined seismic amplitude anomaly in the PSDM-3D data set."
I am guessing that testing "resource potential" in this case to be primarily hydrocarbon source, migration to the carbonate platform, and essentially the quantity and quality of any hydrocarbons encountered, i.e., whether there was good charging of the carbonate platform, and whether the trap was sufficiently good to contatin the hydrocarbons. In other words, it would seem likely to me that they aren't really interested in testing the suitability of the carbonate platform from a porosity/permeability perspective--i.e., that they have already identified it as a likely having good reservoir quality provided the hydrocarbons are present in sufficient quality and quantity.
If there happens to be anyone with industry experience in offshore drilling on this board, I for one would greatly appreciate edification on the type of testing they are likely doing and whether/why that testing routine and done on any well or whether the continuing testing is potentially encouraging.
It was interesting the contrast in langauge reagarding Wingat versus the language they used for HRT-11, which stated:
"The main target of this well was to identify the presence of hydrocarbons in Carboniferous reservoirs of the Juruá Formation, encountered at 2,230 meters depth, and the secondary target was to identify the Devonian reservoirs of the Uerê Formation reached at 2,300 meters depth, with hydrocarbon accumulations."
While I continue to have the same concern about inferring substantive meaning when this langage may have been translated and seems on its face to be awkwardly phrased, this langauge regarding HRT-11 doesn't seem to reflect quite the same degree of careful phrasing not to disclose substantive information about the presence or absence of hydrocarbon. In fact, the language almost seems to take its presence for granted, and the phrase "with hydrocarbon accumulations" is one that I would associate with developable quantities rather than trace quantities.
I also found interesting in the release that they referred to a "the first offshore well in our 3-well back-to-back exploratory drilling campaign." Earlier in the release they had a reference to "in its three back-to-back drilling foreseen at its exploratory campaign this year." Previously I saw references to a 4-well campaign, then a 3 or 4 well campaign.
In short, there seems to be a discernable shift from 4 to 3. What I am wondering is why you wouldn't drill 4 once you have the rig all mobilized and everything. The obvious answer is money, which can be partially addressed by a farmout of that last well. If the speculation I have read is correct about the disagreement with Mello being over the terms of additional farmout, i.e., that Mello didn't want to give up too much to get another partner, hence making a new partner less likely, then the shift to 3 doesn't make sense since the way would seem to be cleared for adding a new partner with Mello not being CEO anymore. Surely it would be cheaper to do the 4th well while everything is mobilized.
On the positive side, if you have one in the hand, it makes drilling a 4th well now much less compelling.
On the negative side, there was an awful lot of discussion of the Solimoes and little discussion of Namibia in the presentation.
Frankly, when I considered everything together, I couldn't discern much of anything regarding the results of the drilling from the recent materials.
I do think, however, that if they did come up dry on Wingat, they are making a huge mistake by not getting that information out as early as possible. My observations of the market have led me to believe that it really, really hates delayed bad news and punishes delay in providing bad news very hard. I would like to extrapolate that into interpreting the release and investor materials as good news, but frankly I just don't see that much of a coherent stragegy to put any stock in what they have done or said one way or the other.
My apologies for this windy reply. I'd really value input from someone with offshore drilling experience . . . .
Best . . . .