Comments on today's conference call

[petrengr1]

This was a very interesting Press Release and Conference Call. Let’s have a closer look at what they have told us they will be doing. I will just discuss the drilling and prospects and leave the discussion of monetization etc. to others. All of my thoughts come from IOC’s present and past presentations but what I present below is just my speculation or my opinion of what I believe they may be thinking or planning. It looks like we are going to try to prove that the area from Triceratops through PRL 15 is a World Class hydrocarbon exploration province.

In the Press Release they said “The work program consists of six wells (1 well each in our prospecting licenses PPL236, 237 and 238, 2 wells in PRL15, and 1 well in APRL39), plus a seismic program in Triceratops east, south west Antelope and a new prospect Bobcat.”

So we are going to do some seismic at Triceratops east. Does that strike a chord with you? I thought we had been more interested in the north and western part on Triceratops. Do you remember when we used to call Triceratops the Bwata Field? At that time they had been showing Bwata East, Bwata and Bwata West. Look at http://www.interoil.com/iocfiles/documen..._Final.pdf page 15 and magnify the Triceratops part of PPL 237 and you will see the three highs mentioned above. I think Bwata and Bwata West are what we now know as Triceratops Field.  Where is Triceratops East? I think that is what was previously known as Bwata East as shown on this Page 15. We are going to follow the reef trend from Triceratops to PRL-15 beginning with Triceratops East.

We have never heard of the Bobcat prospect before but we have heard about the Leopard and Jaguar prospects that were also said to be between Elk/Antelope and Triceratops. You can see where Bobcat is on today’s presentation http://www.interoil.com/iocfiles/documen...0Final.pdf page 21. If you compare that with http://www.interoil.com/iocfiles/documen...inal-1.pdf page 21(magnify as necessary) you will see that the  Bobcat prospect is exactly the same as the Leopard prospect. So they have apparently change the name of the Leopard prospect to the Bobcat prospect. So we will be doing some seismic at the Bobcat prospect to confirm that it is a drillable prospect and to select the final location. Actually they say that Rig-2 is being mobilized to the Bobcat location. That sounds like it has already been decided to drill Bobcat but they are getting some additional seismic. So this is step 2 in moving up the trend toward Elk/Antelope. The next step after that may be Jaguar.

They also said they would be getting some seismic at south west Antelope. What could that be all about? Let’s look at today’s presentation http://www.interoil.com/iocfiles/documen...0Final.pdf page 22 (magnify as necessary) and you will see that the south west corner of Antelope touches a prospect called Grizzly. Could it be that they will see if the high to the south west of  Antelope (Grizzly) is actually a continuation of the Antelope Field? Note the proximity of the Big Horn prospect to Grizzly. Also in today’s presentation (page 17) they say the acquisition of  additional seismic at Big Horn is “underway”. Could it be that Antelope, Grizzly and Big Horn are all the same gas field? Even if they are not connected but are found to contain gas it will be a significant development.

So it looks like we will have both 2-4 appraisal wells as well as some exploration prospects to be drilled in PRL 15. The original terms being negotiated with Exxon would allow them to take 4.6 TCF of gas from Antelope and after drilling some appraisal wells and recertifying the reserves in the Antelope field, these numbers would be used to determine Exxon’s ownership percentage of all of PRL 15. Maybe Dr. Hession decided that we need to know more about all of the prospects in PRL 15 before we “give” Exxon or anyone else a percentage of  PRL 15 based on reserves at Antelope Field only. I had wondered why we would ever consider doing such a thing not knowing what the other prospects contain. In addition you will note that the south end of the Raptor Field extends into PRL 15.

That brings us to the next step of proving up this reefal trend between Triceratops and Antelope. The Raptor-1 well is just West of PRL 15. This well will also be looking for gas in the same Puri carbonate formation that we have in the Antelope Field. Let’s hope it is reefal in nature and not just fractured limestone. It will be deeper than Antelope and therefore should have higher reservoir pressure. See page 20 of today’s presentation to see the Raptor-1 location as well as an alternate location to the northwest. I believe this is the first time they have shown a structure map of the Raptor prospect. They have apparently concluded a contract with Western Drilling (50% owned by NGE) for a rig to drill Raptor-1 in cooperation with our PPL 237 partner PRE. We have been speculating that they would contract this rig for several months.

And then we have the Wahoo prospect shown on page 19 of  today’s presentation. We see both the Wahoo-1 location and an alternated location, neither of which are on the top of the structure. This well is to be drilled with Rig-3 so it appears that we can forget about Elk-3 for the time being.

IOC is trying to obtain a fourth rig which will be used to drill appraisal wells in PRL 15.

The location for Triceratops-3 has been selected as shown on page 23 of today’s presentation and it does appear that the well will be drilled on what we believe to be a reefal structure southwest of Triceratops-2.


All of these prospects have the potential for multi-TCF discoveries if we find reefal reservoirs containing gas. Dr. Hession did give us a cautionary statement which we should all keep in mind. “Exploration wells can also be unsuccessful”.

With that I would say that we are off to a very good start. Just get the deal done and get on with the drilling, both exploration and appraisal.