Dirt, I didn't know that everyone was paid in Sept. Even if they were, it would have been for the drill/frac.
After that there are other costs which are involved. Those are the current issue. I know that one of the operators is also heavily involved in another drill that is taking most of his time. The last I checked, the billing had not been sent for the cost overruns for the pump and piping because of this. It is quite normal to have several projects on the table at the same time and this is also the case here.
Your logic might make since, but your back story and resulting logic, based on mistaken info are causing a skew in your direction of thought.
Go back to source info, get correct direction and you should arrive at the correct conclusions.