Member Info for Barnholdt

Sorry gentlemen, after the Cascadura 5 well failure I am out after 4+ years. Really thought that Ortoire with somewhere around a TCF (?) recoverable could be done by these guys. But they seem to have gotten deal fever with Trinity and Shell and lost focus of what was most important (IMHO) I respect you all and wish you all the best in the future, but for me I have had enough. Keep me in mind if the shareholder lawsuits ever materialize.

I'd be interested to know more about the "throwing in abandonment" at last minute. I worked in Shell A&D right before i retired. Normally, this type of sale by Shell would be:

1) Dispose of non-core assets (big volumes offshore more Shell's style)

2) To avoid decommissioning costs of the wells and potentially, the plant.

Anyone have any insights as to what this meant?

I would be for voting him out.

I would have liked to have seen a bit more meat on the plans going forward:

1) Any estimation on volumes to be connected on wells 4/5. When connected?

2) They have talked about stimulation programs on the oil wells and coho. Have they done any and are any planned in the near future?

3) The compression project is interesting. If the pressure to enter the line is so high, they must have assumed initially that the pressure decline on the cascadura wells would still leave sufficient pressure to enter the line. If I recall, they mentioned a fracture/matrix decline (pardon my amateur reservoir engineering terms). Compression should relieve some back pressure on wells and boost into the sales line.

4) There was talk for awhile, given the oil production on one of the cascadura wells, to focus more on wells that would yield more oil, as they have/had better netbacks? Is this being considered?

5) What specifically are they planning at central block, when, and how much?

6) The company has tried to pickup on some of the cretaceous hype, given results in Guyana, interest by XOM offshore Trinidad. Personally, I think this is a bit of a stretch given the geography and well results to date. But, when might we consider/can actually fund a new exploration test in the future? How many years out are we looking at.

7) I guess my biggest beefs with Mr. Baay is that despite slogans i.e. "Drill to Fill" etc., they have allowed the company to be distracted by the failed acquisition last year and Central Block (not that I think that CB was bad) and lost sight of the ball. Getting the Cascadura facilities producing and filled would have helped so much in terms of making acquisitions possible, managing debt, avoiding raises, and restoring market credibility.

8) My other big beef is just the Touchstone information strategy in general. Hanging on to bad news, not sharing any information with shareholders, etc. I think whoever they have doing investor relations should have been xxxtcanned a long time ago. Much as Mr. Baay would like otherwise, this is still a news driven stock and not a development company as yet.

9) And the moose on the table: this financing arrangement. It is a big overhang on the stock right now. When do we know something other than wishing it would go away?

My two cents worth. Would appreciate comments of any and all.

I worked for Shell for 35 years, and I don't think it could be fairly said that we were a low cost operator. A non-core property like this and the plant might have gotten loaded up with overheads from the Trinidad office and the Hague-I used to see that a lot. The Shell focus would have been more high volume properties offshore to feed into Atlantic. I know we looked into piping gas into Trinidad from Venezuela, which has been mentioned on and off over the years. Having said that, $12MM per annum seems like a lot. I do hope however, that in the acquisition, we kept a lot of the Shell or contract staff to operate the plant. Our boys at TXP have enough trouble in development and operations with what they have, and running a plant is a different kind of operation. I know I was terrified in the other acquisition they looked at that included offshore Galeota-the aspect of operating offshore and decommissioning later on seems a large step change beyond what this company can do.

The compression project sounds interesting for Cascadura. I'd be interested to know what sort of initial pressures they had and what they have dropped off to as they have started production. If I read it right, should reduce the back pressure on the wells to something like 300 PSIG? Cost?

It all sounds very interesting, but I hope we don't have too many balls in the air at once. I think TXP needs more than anything to establish such cash flow as future projects are funded internally or with carefully managed debt. I have been a shareholder for 4 years plus, and I get so tired of these dilutions that seem to accomplish very little and at a lower share price each time.

I would suggest they get the new well tied in and producing right away, unless it is somehow dependent on completing well 4 from an engineering standpoint. Sounds like the No. 4 well might be some months away, unless financing gets squared away soon. A solid well test would also help from a news standpoint, although the logs sound very positive.

What was the story on Cascadura 4? Redrill?