Dave,
Good to hear from you again. Have missed your insight on this thread.
I will try to answer some of your questions if I can.
1.) Unocal....This would seemingly be a great marriage...would it not? I presume that Unocal, being a very large independent, is waiting for Tracer
to hit before joining them. This could be a very profitable scenario if Tracer
were to drill in the Northern sector and make a large discovery. I think Unocal
will want to wait for this to happen, before signing a jv contract.
2.) Tracer has used 2-d enhanced seismic, which is obviously cheaper than 3-d, but at the shallow depths of the structures, it is my understanding that the data is as good as 3-d without the cost.
3.) The reason they have not drilled any deeper, is that the geology is very promising at the shallower levels. There are numerous potentially large structures at these shallow depths. Why drill 10,000 feet when you have plenty of potential at shallower depths. The geology dictates where and how deep you drill. The geology is complex, but the potential is definitely there. Jacobs has said that " there may not be any obvious elephants there....but I am relatively sure there is a herd of water buffalo there, with an equivalent
amount of meat."
4.) I think they might notice a drain of 10 or 20,000 bopd if they drilled into that structure.....
Pete |
