GulfSlope Energy Inc (GSPE)

[Gspex]

The idea would be to continue with the rig at Canoe to get all the low-hanging fruit, and possibly even move toward getting production on line. The rig cost would be the same either way, but the results from Tau would be many weeks after they spud the well with very little in the way of exciting news. It’s a matter of positioning and defining the company narrative. If you use Canoe to generate a lot of excitement, get the stock price up and institutional investors interested, you can generate the funds for Tau and beyond much more easily (hopefully). If Tau is successful, then the excitement will be on the part of much larger entities, and then Gulfslope will be sitting pretty. But it would be a real shame if the drilling program was stymied in the short term by a relatively minor funding shortfall. Obviously Gulfslope is not appealing to investors now. My idea would be to leverage a Canoe success to the max to jumpstart interest and make fund raising much easier. The real prize, and the point of the company is the deep, subsalt prospects. But you have to survive long enough to get two or three of those drilled.