RE: Chances of no new oil?20 Jan 2022 21:45
I'll answer some of these, as I'm a process engineer, I probably have a bit more first handle knowledge than most, I don't normally like to post helpful information as I find it more fun to wind you lot up.
Frabo, More often than you might think, for instance the people who come up with these figures are the geo/petro-physicists, they're skills are often compared to that of a mystic reading tea leaves as much of it is analysis but mixed in with a bit of best case scenario optimism. I've seen multiple attacks on new land fail but I've also been first hand involved in the Laggan Tormore project that saw the geologist believing they'd uncovered the holey grail of gas only to flow the wells and find out that there was oil there too. so it does work out for the better as well. In this case we already know there is oil so it is far more likely the find is genuine.
YM, there is always water mixed in with the wells. it's planet earth and most of the time you are dragging this water up through the water table, it's part of the reason the well has pressure because it's being flooded with water to push the oil up :)