I was thinking during this call about deer hunting.  Why?  Those of you out there who have deer hunted know that you will very seldom ever see the complete deer when you pull the trigger to make the shot.  I say this because I am perplexed by this "experienced" team's inability to get some sort of production from 1A.  This was in a 3D seismic picture and nowadays this gives a huge benefit to explorationists than ever before.  Sure, it's not foolproof, but explorers have a way better picture of the "deer" than ever before.

Sounds like the same thing happened to them that happened with TAG and the Cheal C1. (See their description of the 75 meter Moki interval encountered).  TAG's prescription was to say that if they encountered this formational thickness in the Moki in an UPdip posture, then they would encounter the hydrocarbon in quantity.

Question:  Did NZEC follow this advice?  Or did this "experienced team" do the same thing TAG did in 06?

I think there's a smaller version of Maari onshore somewhere in the fairway where the Moki is updip and stratigraphically linked in a thick enough reservoir if someone will interpret their seismic correctly.  Just sayin!

With the "bullets" costing what they do in this little "deer hunt", thinking it out completely before "pulling the trigger" is a must.  Did they "deviate" the hole wrong on this one?  Was the Arakamu the right pad to drill from, in other words.  One could go on and on.

The Origin deal makes sense if we talk about the cost of drilling, IF, the reservoirs are their in the Mt. Messenger and have the long term staying power needed for "operational cash flow".  If not, they'll need help from reservoirs with a better long term production profile such as the Ticorangi (excuse spelling).  So the company's comments make sense there, except for one little flaw.  Based on NZ govt (as reported by Origin's records) estimates of reserves left in the Ticorangi we are looking at 400,000 bbls of 3P reserves left in that zone.

Whatever the case on the exploration side, and we will never "really" know some of these things, it seems that the boys and girls have painted themselves into an operational cash flow problem.  Operational cash flow is the "water" it takes to keep things alive in this type startup, and I still view this as an early stage deal.  For what it's worth.  Hey Scotch, just sent the wife out to get some barf bags to go with the salve!  GLTA !