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No, he was fine. He was just pissed off because he probably had to wait until the next day, and he was starting his two weeks off. I still don’t know why they didn’t just take me on a short flight back to Louisiana. Somewhere wires got crossed, and I ended up on the wrong helicopter. But that is typical of how drilling goes. It’s very expensive and poor communication is pretty common.
Helicopter story. I had been on an offshore GOM BP rig for a few days. On the day I was scheduled to head back to the base in Louisiana a helicopter showed up at the rig, dropped off some personnel, and was refueled. Nobody told me directly to get on board, but I was supposed to be leaving, so I walked up to the helicopter, handed over my bag and hopped on. Everyone seemed to be okay with it. I settled into the back seat and we took off. And headed south! Oops. The pilot and co-pilot both had on headphones, so I couldn’t hear them, and they couldn’t hear me. I just assumed that the helicopter had another pickup somewhere nearby, so I didn’t say anything. We made good progress, southward, and I was really starting to wonder what was going on. 45 minutes later we were still flying south over open ocean with nothing whatever in sight. I could see the gauges in the cockpit and noted that the fuel gauge was getting uncomfortably close to empty. I got a little paranoid and wondered if I had a suicidal pilot who was just going to fly south until we ran out of gas and then ditch in the ocean. Soon enough I spied a large, floating rig directly ahead. I heaved a sigh of relief as we came in for a landing on the rig. I was told to get off and a bunch of crew hustled around getting the helicopter fueled and loading baggage. I was just standing there, and eventually the co-pilot came over and asked what was going on. I informed him that I wasn’t supposed to be on that rig, because it was drilling a super-secret well for BP, and I wasn’t on the need to know list. So I couldn’t stay there . I also pointed out that I was trying to get back to Louisiana so I could fly back to Houston. There was a group of guys standing on the deck with their bags who were clearly waiting to get on the helicopter. They were looking at me like what the hell. The co-pilot came up to me again and asked how much I weighed. I told him and he did some figuring and the went over to the waiting group. He said something to one of the group, who promptly slammed his bag down and starting cursing. I was completely innocent, but it was now clear that I had bumped this poor guy off of the flight, and he was going to have to wait for the next one. I of course got back home, but I spent almost 3 hours on a helicopter flying over the Gulf before it was all over with. That was enough helicopter travel for a lifetime.
You’re welcome. After all these years, I am starting to feel pretty optimistic.
Without Delek, nothing is going forward, because they own the biggest share of Tau. Either Delek has to agree to fund at least 75% of Tau-2, or GulfSlope and a partner would have to buy them out. Logistically, I think GulfSlope is doing everything they can. But lining up funding is more difficult than getting a rig and designing a well. Negotiations may be ongoing, or a new partner may just be eluding them. I agree - it would really be nice if longtime shareholders could get some inkling of what is going on, and if there is still hope that GulfSlope will eventually discover some oil. They have the prospects.
Don’t neglect Corvette. I think it’s a better prospect than Tau, and it could be quite a bit bigger. There is a subsalt prospect underneath where we drilled Canoe Shallow, which is also very big and drill-able. I know GulfSlope picked up a block over that prospect in 2020. So there is actually still quite a bit to offer in the GulfSlope portfolio of prospects. They may have lost some good blocks, but given the necessity to get the financial situation in shape, there wasn’t really any way to avoid it.
This news that PGS has re-processed a ton of their data over the trend that GulfSlope first identified, and that they are seeing exploration opportunities near existing production infrastructure is very interesting. A lot of companies will go see the new images and may agree with GulfSlope that the subsalt potential is great. In one sense this is unfortunate, because GulfSlope has had to drop a lot of the acreage over the prospects the company identified in 2013 to 2016. If other players now have data that allows them to find the same prospects, then GulfSlope could, unfortunately, lose the advantage of having been the first into the play. As far as I know, only Tau and Corvette of the big prospects are still controlled by GulfSlope, so they have lost a lot. On the other hand, if companies start getting excited about the prospects the reprocessed data reveals, and buy acreage in the trend, then this could really jumpstart the play, and attract a lot of interest to Tau and Corvette. Just Tau and Corvette would have a huge potential for reserves, and if we could get those two drilled and producing it would support the company for many years. This could be a really big development in terms of attracting good, deep-pocketed partners.The important indicators will be heightened interest in the next shelf lease sale, and any news that companies are going to GulfSlope and asking to see Tau and Corvette.
Also the deep water tax incentives are going to disappear, which makes shelf properties even more attractive for offshore investors.
Boskalis looks to be an oil services company, not an exploration company. I really can’t see Ron Bain being involved with such an entity. But I haven’t spoken with him for years. I will ask mutual friends and confirm.
Thanks for the shout-out. When we get back to drilling I will once again be giving the board the benefit of my 45 years of oil exploration experience, 20 years in the GoM. Drilling gets complicated and confusing, and I will do my best to sort things out so that we all know what is going on. I must point out that the Tau-1 well, which skated on the edge of disaster the entire time it was being drilled, was actually very encouraging. There were geologic indications at the end of the wellbore that, in my experience, strongly suggested that a major oil sand was immediately below the bit. Or maybe it was actually penetrated and that is what caused the pressure and loss of circulation that destroyed the well. It kills me to know that we were so close. We just have to get back and do it again.
Still here and loyal to the bitter end. I actually have owned GulfSlope stock since 2013, the “Friends and Family” offering. Bet nobody can beat that. And I intend to cash in big when the announcement of the Tao-2 drilling plan is made. Absolutely no reason to sell at this point.
Sorry to say it wasn’t anything stockholder related. I did some contract geophysical work for Gulfslope and this was just some paperwork related to that. Reading the tea leaves, though, it did seem like they are moving forward with the plan. Otherwise they wouldn’t have bothered with making sure all the papers were signed. Slim pickings, but positive if anything. They haven’t just given up the ghost. I believe they let their office lease expire, which makes sense given the pandemic and everyone working from home anyway. Saves money during a time when there aren’t any operations going on.
I just got a request from the secretary of Gulfslope to confirm my mailing address, because they want to send me something. Intriguing. It’s the first sign of life I have seen from them in a year. I will let everyone know if it sheds any light on what is going on.
I can’t reveal anything more due to privacy concerns, but I can tell you this person knows what is going on.
I finally reached a friend who has done consulting work for GulfSlope in the past and still has some contact with them. Unfortunately he said he is not aware of any business developments that would justify an increase in share price. So it looks to be just another example of small investors manipulating heavily shorted stocks. Manufacturing short squeezes seems to be the game we are playing these days.
Thanks. I appreciate your insight.
Thanks for that. Do you see the robinhood/subReddit manipulation having potential to get out of control? In the greater stock market?
You know way more than I do about how all of this works. Is it possible that the Wall Street Bets subreddit folks are spreading their poison to other stocks? That would be really bad news for mainstream investors. If what happened to GSPE yesterday was them playing around, the Gulfslope price may not have any meaning at this point. Worrying!
I can’t find any hint that there is any legitimate positive news about GulfSlope that would justify a run up from .003 to .05. So I am reluctantly going to have to conclude that someone is playing games. That being said, the fact that oil prices are holding steady at a higher level, and that the Saudis seem to be willing to prop them up, is good news. As is the dormant state of the fracking play. Just need some of that money on the sidelines from onshore operators to seek a good new play on the shelf. I guess we should be happy with .023. Hanging in for now.
Sorry to see you go. Y’all come back now, y’hear.
Their entire portfolio is Gulf of Mexico, shallow water, subsalt prospects. They do have several federal leases that can/have to be drilled in the next few years.
According to Rigzone news, fracking/tight-sand play won’t restart until oil price is sustained above $50/barrel for some time. It will take 3 months and lots of money for new wells when it does start up again. Operators with lots of production are paying down debt. They could also be looking to invest in alternative oil plays which are economic at current oil price. Which would definitely include the GulfSlope subsalt play
I haven’t contacted anyone within the company, just ex-employees who might have heard something. Also, if Gulfslope did make a deal, it wouldn’t stay secret for long. Just looking for gossip, basically. So far, all I can say, is GulfSlope doesn’t appear to be being talked about. I may try to contact the CFO if everything else is tight. He has given me some info in the past, and seems to be willing to return emails, anyway.
Kosmos discovery is not exciting stuff. Very small field step-out in a very mature part of the Gulf. More akin to Canoe than to Tau. It wouldn’t have lit any fuses. I did read on Rigzone news that investment in oil and gas is getting hot - lots of money moving in. Could mean new investor that hadn’t seen Gulfslope’s prospects made them a deal and is moving things along toward drilling something. I am contacting numerous industry people in Houston and hopefully someone will tell me what’s up. Or it could just be purely market activity with nothing on the exploration side. I will find out.
I am trying to call ex-Gspe employees who may know what is up - so far no luck. If they got a partner and are moving to prepare for drilling, they would have to contract a rig, and get support companies (drilling mud, directional, mud loggers etc.) lined up. This activity would be at multiple companies and would generate a lot of buzz in the oil patch. No way they could keep it quiet if they are moving on Tau-2. Could be Delek or some other company buying them out based on prospects. Just speculation at this point but something big is driving this, and it is promising enough that someone wants in bad.
It promises 100% success, because it already was a success. They produced oil on a drill stem test. It is a legitimate discovery - just don’t know how big. Another well there would be an appraisal well, not an exploratory well. Why not? Yes, money is tight to not there. But you could start production in months, and then have money coming into GulfSlope. I hope they’re at least shopping it around.
Since the Anadarko well was drilled in the mid 90’s, all of the information is now available through the government. I assume that GulfSlope has better seismic imaging of whatever Anadarko found. They would use that to improve the location of a follow up, which would presumably be a productive well if it found the oil sand. I am a bit mystified why they haven’t grabbed that low-hanging fruit, especially since they could drill using one of the 2 remaining slots on the Rooster platform. Don’t know what those guys are up to these days. As always I will keep my shares and hope for some news.
I should say, VR375 and VR376 comprise the Corvette Prospect. The shallow Anadarko discovery was in the eastern part of VR375. It should be reachable from the Rooster/VR376 platform.
VR376 deep is Corvette. It also has potential shallow objectives that follow on from the old Anadarko discovery that was never developed. Corvette is, IMHO, maybe better/bigger/less risky than Tau. It was also known as the Selectron Prospect early on in Gulfslope’s history. Hope someone managed to keep some of the information from the PowerPoint that Gulfslope used to have posted on their website.
I’m really sorry to see Freedom go. That was one of the nicer, bigger prospects. But it needs new seismic data to map it adequately, and I don’t think the data is available. GulfSlope doesn’t have the spare cash for new data purchase or acquisition at any rate. Too bad.
Glad to see that the Corvette prospect (VR376) is hanging in there. Other than Tau, that is the best-mapped, and closest to being ready to drill of what is left of the inventory. Assuming a success with Tau-2, I would expect to see additional activity at Corvette to get it to drill-ready.
Oil today is at $40, a pittance historically. But GulfSlope can make money at that level. The big headwind is going to be the inevitable move away from oil into renewables. GOM producers have until 2050 to get their oil out of the ground. That again would be ok from Gulfslope’s perspective, because a field like Tau would be largely depleted by that time. Covid has hit oil demand so hard that a return to normal demand with the advent of a vaccine should produce quite a price increase. If GulfSlope is ready to offer Tau as the price increase is making some headlines, there might be some irrational exuberance that would help them get partners. They were very actively marketed Tau before the virus shutdown, but with no takers. It will take a renewed perspective of oil as a good way to make money to change that. I think Seitz is down to his last chance. If we get lucky and oil becomes hot again, Tau could get drilled and GulfSlope could have a future. It could be too late, if oil is perceived as a dinosaur smokestack industry with no future. It will be worth watching industry news as we come out of the virus crisis to see if there is one more boom left in oil before the long decline begins.
Thanks, spec. Appreciate your input. Hope you are right that they have something else going. I have lost touch with my contacts and have no idea what is going on.
Was interested to see in an article on BP’s abysmal results that they have now publicly reduced their oil price forecast going forward and have written down some of their producing/exploration projects which they no longer view as economically viable. If more companies do that, it will dampen everyone’s outlook. It’s going to be tough to get projects done for a while.
Has there been any announcment from Delek with regard to re-drilling Tau with the insurance money? Clearly Gulfslope has decided to use the compensation money to pay bills, which may be important for their survival. But if Delek decides to redrill, Gulfslope would still have to participate or lose their interest in the prospect. Where Gulfslope would get the money is a big question, since they have been flogging Tau with everyone they can find and haven’t come up with any partners. If Delek decides to redrill Tau, Gulfslope still has hope, if they can raise some cash. But if Delek decides not to redrill it’s game over. Hope Delek are still deciding what to do, and haven’t bailed on the GoM.
Seems like the good ones always go too soon. And vice versa.
Very interesting. My information has pretty much dried up since the original Gulfslope crew is largely gone. So it’s great that you can find stuff out using data mining. I for one will be paying close attention. Sounds like you need to find an AI expert and do a startup.
Have you heard something? Don’t know why they wouldn’t drill Tao-2 first since it’s already paid for. I guess they could have some deal cooking, but it seems unlikely.
Surprisingly jackup rig utilization has been pretty high after a drop earlier in the year. So rig rates are also holding steady to slightly lower. There isn’t any Covid bonus for drilling costs.
Thanks for all the posts! Sorry to see you go.
Tau-1 will be of great help. These days everyone monitors downhole pressure (formation pressure) as part of the sensor package just above the bit assembly. So they have the best pressure information you can get - not estimated from seismic, but actually measured right next door. The low effective stress is just a way of saying that there isn’t much in the way of cementation or even grain contact because of the anomalously high fluid pressure. Knowing the pressure and having fine pressure control with the MPD should allow them to just push ahead instead of losing control. And that will prevent extra casing and the resultant loss of hole diameter. When you use synthetic mud and are losing it into the formation it is very expensive. Just being able to keep the mud weight right at the formation pressure will probably save enough to pay for the MPD.
I don’t know much about mud systems. My recollection is that they use water based for the shallow section. I think they use salt saturated mud going through the salt. Most wells in the GoM that I had anything to do with mostly used synthetic mud to give better penetration rates.
I know all of the original Gulfslope geo’s because the oil business in Houston is a very small world. You are always running into people you have dealt with or worked with. I am not going to reveal names, because that would be an invasion of privacy. I am retired but most of my good friends are still in Houston, and I check in with them on a regular basis. If they are willing to share something, and they don’t say it’s confidential, I don’t feel bad about putting it in a post. It’s not insider information because these guys aren’t working in the industry anymore, let alone at Gulfslope. Plus the SEC has clear definitions of what constitutes insider info. and it generally has to be business related stuff (deals, financing, negotiations, stock splits, etc.) Technical info. like general, well-known drilling methods and so on doesn’t bother them. If you are talking about specifics that would affect the value of the company and the SP, that’s another matter. But unless you are spending time in the excutive offices there is no way you could know any of that stuff.
Hope that clarifies the information I may have access to. Just enjoy the fact that you get to see it. It isn’t BS - it’s the real thing. It’s just second-hand.
I expect they will. Last time I talked to the their drilling engineer that was the plan.
I was talking to one of the original Gulfslope geo’s the other day and they indicated that Gulfslope was done, kaput, wouldn’t even drill the insurance well for free. This person tends to be a glass-half-empty kind, so I took it with a grain of salt, but they seemed to be pretty convinced. It is huge that Gulfslope looks to be moving ahead with Tau. I was getting worried.