I asked a mate in Aberdeen...13 Jun 2018 12:54
What he thought of RBD (he is involved in drilling software) - his comments are below and are as expected:
Although they say their activity is low risk, drilling never is!
Because of the low barrel price, larger operators like BP and Shell whose operating costs are too high, are selling off lots of smaller assets like these.
I used to work for a boutique well engineering firm and we'd do lots of wells like these for small Independents.
There's a lot of M&A activity in this business just now - I don't know what that means in terms of your investment risk but if the wells are as lucrative as projected, it could be a good thing. Bear in mind these are all Exploration / Appraisal wells which means they're drilling a hole to gather data and see what's down there. They will then either sell it off or develop it themselves and start pumping oil. Either way, you could make a shitload. Equally, a "dry hole" is very bad thing!!