I actually believe that Hession has the right strategy. We have all be lamenting about how we risk not getting value out of the string of pearls. Development and Production are always going to be at the whims of the big boys. The best thing that IOC can do is drill, drill, and drill to prove the value of their pearls as soon as possible. If it were me, I would prioritize my pearls based on the seismic data to prove whether they are of any value. Once you have one well logged in each pearl that has oil or gas, the string begins to add value to IOC.
The XON negotions are going to take as long as they take. We are better off drilling to value our pearls in parallel !!
Personally, I think we should now be asking, "How long is the string of pearls?" or maybe "What is the value of our string of pearls?
CF