Looking at Noble energy you do see a lot of positives. The development of Tamar and Leviathan, the world's two largest deepwater gas finds. Deepwater drilling Gulf of Mexico (double the water depth of the Falklands areas). Their production activities began with a 34 percent working interest in the Alba field, offshore Equatorial Guinea. In addition to natural gas and crude oil production, related operations include an LPG processing plant where liquids are recovered and a methanol plant. Natural gas produced from the field is sold to the LPG and methanol plants as well as a third-party LNG facility. Their first operated major project in West Africa, Aseng, came online in late 2011 and they expect to bring the next project, Alen, to production in late 2013. And its West Africa I think that draws their attention to the Cretaceous area's of FOGL's licenses.
Add this on to Edison SPA, who are also leaders is developing gas, LNG etc.. and you now have 2 heavyweights in gas on board with FOGL, and no its not surprising given the 25 TCF recoverable potential of Loligo.
But, going back, its West Africa I think that draws Noble Energys' attention to the Cretaceous area's of FOGL's licenses, as West Africa and East Falklands used to be one..........many many years ago.
Noble have had a lot of success in West Africa, and West Africa is analogous to the Cretaceous of the East Falklands, Noble could really be a key here in developing the Cretaceous plays, starting with Scotia.
The Tertiary plays are analogous to the Campos Basin in Brazil, not an area of expertise for Noble but one which a lot of effort has been put into by FOGL.
Its also worth highlighting again at this stage the big differences between BOR's and FOGL's license areas. BOR were drilling the fold belt - high pressure was a very real risk. FOGL are not drilling any high pressure or high temperature wells. They are drilling well away from the hot spot area, which makes migration risk higher, but pressure and overcooking risks very much lower.
Its also interesting if you take GREEN in the above as FOGL's estimates of GAS, and YELLOW in the above as FOGL's estimates of OIL - well, look at Darwin, FOGL marked it as gas (gas condensate) long before the drill bit found gas (gas condensate).
Its going to be interesting to see if their expectation of GAS upper at Loligo and OIL lower is going to proven correct, would be lovely to a circa 10TCF to 12TCF recoverable gas find in the upper before the drill bit goes further down to check for any oil below.