RE:RE:Am I really the last guy...Check, I think you have realistic expectations and ask some good questions. The numbers thrown around here really are pie-in-the-sky, and these deepwater projects take many years to move from discovery to development and production. As I mentioned before, I wouldn't be surprised if XOP doesn't last until that point. In the event of a commercial discovery the oil in the ground will be worth more to XOM on an incremental basis than the market gives to XOP and they'll have no trouble making XOP shareholders an offer they can't refuse. The big players really do not like to have minnows hanging around trying to raise funding to keep up with the program. At 83% XOM will have the carrying vote under the JOA for anything they want to do and could easily outspend XOP into the ground.
I've not heard anything about a pooling arrangement and would be surprised that if such talks were going on it hasn't remained confidential. A more typical process in these situations would be that each party first evaluates its own block(s) and if they have a discovery which crosses the boundaries they would approach the government for approval of a unitization arrangement (or, the government may require it). But who knows - maybe they both see some risk-sharing benefits to cross-assign a portion of each other's blocks and explore jointly.