RE:RE:RE:RE:RE:DirkOil_Run, In a previous post I looked for clarification on whether they were reporting TVD (true vertical depth) or TMD (true measured depth). If they had 1500 feet to drill TVD but are drilling high angle hole where they'd have to drill say 2300 feet to increase TVD by 1500 feet then that would explain the delay because not only would you have more hole to drill, directional drilling high angle takes a lot longer.
Just a thought: I know that on past wells that I've been on they wanted to catch as many pay zones as possible with one well. So they have to drill directionally to intersect them all because the formations are not always directly on top of one another especially in areas with faults.
The geology that I have read talks about listric faults being very common in valleys and canyons. These faults often serve as migration pathways as well. So maybe oyl designed the well such that they'd catch the upper zones, drill through the fault, and catch the lower section of a Santonian that was once one continuous formation pre fault. Just guessing. I do know that the geologists are always on constant look out for faults. Very important I guess for reasons that I don't fully understand.
Note to Dfly: It's no surprise that oil could be present in formations under land in Guyana. A pdf that I read back in August authored by a Guyanese PHd student at the Colorado School of Mines said that local fishermen were reporting oil seeps into the ocean, near land, as far back as the 1700s.
Yallup and Scotchman also talk about these seeps in their report. Oil is still seeping into the ocean to this day. I guess that some oil must make it's way up to the ocean surface. How? Via faults? Source, migration pathway, but no seal I guess. But yes, very close to land as well as far offshore the seeps are common and have been reported for centuries.