Member Info for Glib

@SGF
They will probably be using a PQ size diamond drill which is 122.6mm / 4.82” which seems to be the max for that mineral rig.
https://mitchelldrillinginternational.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/06/Hanjin-DB-45-Multipurpose-Rig-Data-Sheet.pdf
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_diamond_drilling#Tube_sizes

I think the tube lengths were about 6.5m going on what was left in the hole, so possibly need to factor that in to any pictures.

Last time I estimated the drilling at 60mpd, so 30mpd may be a bit light.
Where I put 500m in my previous posts, please transpose that to 550m.

GLA Have a good weekend

I don't think DM has been replaced for interviews. Ian Stalker has given interviews a few times but there was nothing new to report. He was basically stressing that they have plenty of money to continue drilling and reminding the market that the Tai-1 hole exceeded all expectations even though we failed to get any data beyond 880m.

I think the hole could be completed about 2 weeks from now. The RNS stated that [ The exploration well targets prospective Lake Bed stratigraphy ]. I posted where I thought the various formations were last night, but as a reminder:
0-55m - wellhead casing
55-70m - Shale Unit (20m thick)
70-400m? - Lake Bed Formation - 1 show 70-75m @ 2.22% confirmed (400 is estimate of base of LBF)
400?-750m - Red Sandstone Group - 1 show at 552-561m+ (before drill string broke)
(2/3m shale seal but not sure if the show began straight away so does RSG start at 550m?)
750-880m - sealing unit for Karoo - 1 show tested 825-845m (fizz gas)
880-1121m - 4 Helium shows with a cumulative thickness of >70m (untested)

The Lake Bed Formation (LBF) has a 20m Shale seal. Not too sure where that starts, but as we drilled the wellhead to 55m last time, 70m seems a fair estimate. 1 day to drill 55m and then cement the casing. 4 days to let the cement set as this is thicker than other cementing in the well (to ensure it can handle high pressure forces).

The base of the LBF is estimated at 400m. One of the interviews mentioned drilling into the Red Sandstone Group which only had a 2 or 3m seal, then straight into a show. This was where we lost the drill string after 9m at 561m. I'm not saying that we take every word of an interview as gospel, but as the 400m was an estimate, the base of the LBF cannot be greater than 550m (the start of the Red Sandstone Group show).

So 5 days to get to 55m and ready for 24hr drilling
Drilling at 30mpd, 500m of Lakebed would take 17 days.
And then a few days for testing.

We got news of Tai-1 completing on the 11th, so it would have been complete on the 10th. They would not want the rig standing idle for long, so lets say they took a day to think about things and another to move the rig in place.
Drilling could possibly have started on the 13th?
24 hour drilling ready to begin at 55m on the 18th?
400m reached by the 29th or 500m by 3rd September?
Testing for a few days and news on Wednesday 1st or Monday 6th?

I was hoping the " one " target tested would get a Drill Stem Test, but I'm not sure if that is the intention. I would have thought that the target would be the Red Sandstone Group, but it looks like it will be the Lake Bed Formation - in earlier RNS', they wrote:
[ Due to the poorly consolidated nature of the Lake Bed Formation encountered at Tai-1, it will not be possible to perform drill stem tests on any pay zones identified in the shallow strata in this well. This is to remove the risk of hole collapse during flow testing and ensure that Tai-1 can continue to test prospective closures at depth in the Red Sandstone and Karoo Formations. ]

The Red Sandstone Group had a strong show we were drilling through when the string broke.
[ At a depth of 552 metres, the Helium One mudlogging crew detected elevated helium in mud that constitutes a gas show. The gas show continued to increase over a thickness of 9 meters, at which point drilling was halted due to parted drill-pipe.]

We have no info about any shows other than the original 2.2% @ 70.5m - "The gas show is situated at the base of a 20 metres thick shale unit and persisted at >10,000ppm (>1%) He for 4-6 meters."
0-55m - wellhead casing
55-70m - Shale Unit (20m thick)
70-400m? - Lake Bed Formation - 1 show 70-75m @ 2.22% confirmed (400 is estimate of base of LBF)
400?-750m - Red Sandstone Group - 1 show at 552-561m+ (before drill string broke)
(2/3m shale seal but not sure if the show began straight away so does RSG start at 550m?)
750-880m - sealing unit for Karoo - 1 show tested 825-845m (fizz gas)
880-1121m - 4 Helium shows with a cumulative thickness of >70m (untested)

It may be that after testing the LBF, if the hole is still stable could they drill the RSG again? Possibly wishful thinking, but until informed otherwise, i'll keep wishing.

Good luck with the operation QS. Hope all goes well and you just need to rest up for a few days.

I believe the rig had already been arranged and delivered before the Tai prospect was chosen as a drill site.

From the Mitchell Drilling website, this rig seems to be the largest mineral rig they have. An O&G rig will cost considerably more and we would need to wait months for it to be sourced, contract agreed, shipped and assembled.

I think the other sites were all shallower than Tai, so hopefully there will be no issues with washouts and will take less time to complete.

JR, I don't think there will be a new high before confirmation. The first hole I believe got that honour but this one will not have the same movement even though it is only 20m away. There will be less sentiment behind this well although it should get to within 20% of the high. If we get a "discovery" rather than just a show of helium, then we will go through the roof.

We know there is helium migrating through the basin and have seen from the first drill that efficient seals are not required for the seal to be effective. Now we just need to find the helium in a gas form.

I think its the platform that has a problem. Tried logging out and back in, but get the same message for all the Stocks I own.

My beans have been cooked.
All I get on iWeb is "Quick Quote Unavailable on Market (LSE)"
Can't buy any shares at all.

There were a number of shows on the way down that I think will be fully tested on the way down rather than waiting until we reach a Target Depth (just my opinion). These shows were not tested with wireline tools in the first hole, so they will be wanting to see if the get the same results at the second hole and investigate them fully.

Judgement day may be a bit extreme, but I'm sure DM will be getting all the data he can each step of the way down. If there is no discovery, I wouldn't class that as a failure. We are still learning about the composition of the basin and migration system, so we need as many data points as we can get.

The SP has tried to reach beyond 15.2p a few times, but the lows are getting higher and that ceiling will soon be tested in earnest. https://invst.ly/vsx6l It's a little too early to see where the market will try to set the price tomorrow (usually a rise or fall in the last hour), but I can't see us being offered shares at a discount so I think we will end today above 15p.

The wellhead may already be set but drilling won't begin again until that is in place. A couple of weeks of drilling and then more price movement. For the last well we initially bounced between 20p-22p so we may go up a bit yet, although some sentiment will need to be discounted.

I'm hoping they have the wellhead already drilled and are just waiting on the cement to dry. I'm don't think we will get a discovery from the 70m show as there will not be much pressure at that depth, but any news will be most welcome.

It may have been because the wireline tool got hung up in Tai-1. I don't know how the insurance works, but it may be that once there is a known problem with using the tools in the hole, the insurance is void for that hole. That would be the only reason I can think of for not testing the shallow shows at Tai-1 (if they haven't).

I would estimate the PQ' size hole will take the same 5 days to drill and cement the casing as the first. Drilling at a rate of about 40mpd? will see them reach 400m, which I believe was the area DM wanted to test, in just over a week? Not sure if they will try a flow test at that stage or just wireline, but looking forward to news around then.

I agree that a week is not much time between RNS, but it is frustrating. Especially as the report suggests that a larger bore hole would be a solution to our problems. The only issue with that is we already seem to be using the largest mineral rig that Mitchell Drilling have. https://mitchelldrillinginternational.com/equipment/ For diamond drilling, the machine we are using already uses the largest sizes available https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Exploration_diamond_drilling so i'm not sure what they are suggesting .

We know there are other prospects we will be looking at and I believe we have 15 licences for drilling. There are no issues with finance, so we are just waiting to hear what happens next. We have probably been spoiled with the amount of news we have received from DM previously. In other mining companies, it is not unusual to go for months without news.

It has only been 1 week since the last RNS. Taking time now will save money later in whatever decisions are made. Tai-1A will be tested for the intervals that are accessible. I'm not sure how long this takes but a week would not seem unreasonable. After testing, they would need to analyse the data - this would include the soil type, density, porosity and whatever the gamma rays and neutron devices do.

Once we know what we have at Tai, I believe only then can we make an informed decision on the next best step. Rushing is not going to do us any favours so I am happy to wait for news. If I hadn't heard anything after a month that would be a different matter.

Forgot to add line chart link https://invst.ly/vs5b9

Well, the SP didn't even wait to reach the second wedge formation before falling. It followed the trendline down but I have no idea if it pauses, or rebounds from 11p. https://invst.ly/vs52m

The good news is that it seems to be pushing past the trendline, so there are signs of positive movement in the last hour. Only an RNS will really move the SP, so we are just drifting right now but hopefully we will continue to drift upwards tomorrow. Hopefully that will continue tomorrow.

There is a weak floor at 10.6p and a long-term resistance at 10.2p.

It's twoo, it's twoo!
Magic lines say the SP is moving in a restricted range and if no news tomorrow may finish at 12p. https://invst.ly/vrrzx

And why has there been no TA posts over the weekend? Maybe because there is no trading over the weekend? Surely it couldn't be that simple?

I use the very short term 5 min charts which gives a fairly good view of movement over the past few days. Given recent price movements, there is nothing to indicate any significant change in the SP. This may change around Wednesday when the wedge completes.

I'm pretty sure testing of the "reachable" shows will be taking place. It takes a while to prepare a new drill site and we haven't heard anything about that yet. Unless we are going to try another hole at Tai; but shallower prospects would make more sense to me. They want to keep within budget and they want 3 holes drilled before the end of the year.

Their finances were in place for the exploration drills before the £10m placing which was for the Appraisal drills and 3D seismic. I think they are quite a bit off from needing to look at extra funds, but you may be right. I wouldn't complain about them doing so after a discovery. :o)

They can't confirm the helium is there because they can't get the wireline tools down far enough. There were helium shows though - they just don't have enough data to state exactly what us there.

It's a pity they can't just fill the hole with a soft cement then drill again through that without needing to worry about washing away the loose mud and sediment. Then send some small blasting caps down to the show levels and test what is coming through.

I wonder how many drillers just facepalmed at that suggestion. lol

Before they move the rig, they will need to prepare the new site. We have not heard anything about that, so possibly testing the areas we can get reach while that is done.

I'm not sure what the benefit of a larger bore hole would be. We started with a large bore for the first 55m and cemented this to create the well head. Then a smaller drill bit was used to 400m where we cemented the casing to protect the water table; then a smaller drill bit went into that and the damn thing broke off. We know the rig being used which should be able to reach the 1200m - I don't believe other sites are as deep so there was no issue with the rig itself. https://www.mccullochsdrilling.com.au/new-equipment/hanjin-d-b-45-cbm

A larger bore hole would not make the rock they are drilling through any more stable and would be just as likely to collapse. They do not need to redrill Tai-1A - they can test around 800m of this hole.
The wider bore that would be used for the Appraisal drill would be to make a larger hole that could be used to test gas flow. While drilling they would also be able to get core samples. One of the main issues we faced was that we had no idea what rock we would be drilling at any given time, so the pressure would have to have been continually monitored. The fact that the shear happened about 30m above the drill bit suggests a weakness in one of the drill rods. More likely to be wear and tear rather than an experienced drill crew messing up.

Yeah, hard to say where the profit will come from next, but I think HE1 will be going back up as we know we have done only 1 of 3/4 drills. Next news will create stability and we know how this has performed in the past. By next drill result I hope to have traded an increase in the shares I hold here.