The Standard Oil company were about to give up on the search for oil in the Arabian desert during the 1930s, when they figured they'd give rig No. 7 one last try. It struck the Dammam dome and established the world's greatest production stream.
With the search for North Sea oil off the Norwegian coast practically abandoned, some one or other suggested that with three months' lease remaining on the equipment, it should be left drilling until its expiry. It struck oil and established the world's largest sovereign wealth fund.
The lesson in all of this is that if you've still got the equipment to hand, you might as well give it all you've got in the search for success.
And we'll look at how we can do that with the components we last used in the flying prototype that was tested at the end of November last year because we're six months on with no substantial progress ~ in fact no progress of any sort.
For aside from the equipment in storage following dismantling of that scale prototype, there is the fact that the company returns were filed within the last month, and that does not come cheap either.
So let's see what we can salvage from the wreckage, shall we?
