You’re absolutely right that reprocessing, and especially new seismic data, could give a better picture of the subsalt prospects. I’m with you. I personally wouldn’t drill Tao without a better image of the subsurface. The imaging for Canoe shallow is fine. Cost to acquire new multi-azimuth, modern data over several prospects would be on the order of what you suggest - a few million dollars. I can only guess that the timing is such that they wouldn’t be able to get the data and integrate it before the leases start to expire. Plus it might be Gulfslope’s responsibility to provide the seismic at the exploration stage, and they don’t have any spare cash. I can pretty much guarantee you that any subsalt prospect that shows a positive result in the exploration well will get all new data and analysis before the delineation and production wells are drilled. Delek will have plenty of money for that.
There’s another issue here. If Gulfslope’s competition has better data, they could be more favorably situated to buy the right blocks in the next lease sales. The only reason that Gulfslope has a chance of success is that so far they are the only ones that believe in the play. If they prove that there are Mars or Atlantis type accumulations on the shelf they will get run over by all the big players. The data that was used to identify Gulfslope’s prospects is antiquated. If they were lucky, they probably accurately located a few good ones. But I imagine the newer data shows a whole lot more, and with a much better image. Without the best, newest data, Gulfslope will be eating dust. I’m sure they are aware of the problem.
