Title: William H. Hastings on D3 Energy's drilling program — wellhead economics, dry holes, and seismic-after-wells
Show: Uranium Discord — #general channel (member post relaying Bill Hastings' emails, reprinted with permission)
Author: William H. Hastings ("Bill" / "WHH"), retired oil & gas executive; relayed to the channel by a community member
Date: 2026-08-04
URL: https://discord.com/channels/899395617510555698/899395940429996122/1534113986247790612
Attachment (NOT published): "Well Cost v Product Analysis 3Aug26.xlsx" — Hastings' "Virginia Gas Field — Well and
      Production Revenue Analysis" matrix. Distribution-restricted ("Limited to those approved by William H.
      Hastings"); kept locally, excluded from the published site and deliberately not hyperlinked.
Note: Written Discord post — no video, no timestamps. Bill's emails are reproduced verbatim (quoted below as posted);
      only the poster's framing line is outside the quotes. Ellipses and typos are as written.
Curator note (Stephen, not part of the post and not Bill's words): "Seems there is no or next to no decline
      curve - for whatever reason - and up to 500,000 acres subject to being proved up. Would suggest world
      class potential in size and richness."


I'll copy over some of his emails.

"Here is a very very rough stab at the valuation matrix Nathan asked about. I have not done a Pivot Table on this but that can be done. It does shown Bert's 1 month figure is pretty accurate. The costs are wellhead only and don't include facility costs (gathering, plant processing and such) as those are not associated with the wellhead effort. At the bottom you can place your most likely variables below mine "most likely". Its rudimentary and you can adjust formulas but you can see what Bert is getting at - I hadn't actually done this analysis before"

"….. gotta love the oil business.

In Casey's case (pardon the pun). He (we) are blessed with pre existing well data and ultra-low cost wells. He recognizes that a reasonable number of dry holes (the latest one is not dry) don't matter - its not material - in order to get seismic interpretation for the much greater good (reserve definition and addition).

And those facts will be important when it comes valuation time. On the one hand we have a $600+/mcf product and on the other hand we have <$200,000 wells to get that. You are seeing the flexibility play out.

These are some of the reasons why I've made my strongly positive comments - re printed with permission (mostly) by his eminence (Bert).

As an aside, we had a $600,000 per day dry hole ($20 million) in Norway a while back, it's all relative. (We followed with a second well that led to the 700 million barrel Alvheim field so I managed to avoid getting fired)

Bill"

"Appears, yes, that they did drill without seismic. It is indeed customary in a low-risk environment but low risk environments are not common. You can do it when you have an existing well that produces already nearby (which they do between the new wells). Seismic is shot post well to see how the seismic signatures line up with each well's producing zone / zones. You can then use the seismic to step further out distance wise to drill the next well with no corollaries thereby reducing risk. I've told Bert I expect them to drill to more wells in the relatively near term further south toward the PRA to better define the fault system. Well corollary and seismic will make these two next wells even more important then the current ones.

It will be important to see the map of where the seismic will be shot as an indicator of where this development will be going near term.

Yes, the new well results will be interpreted by Sproule (along with the new seismic) and likely take reserves from Contingent to Proven/Probable/Possible. I was surprised a little bit that the two new wells were so close together because Casey is so experienced and good. It's an indicator of how he is thinking (this is smart move) and how he sees the play and the development and may indicate a second target (that they have quietly mentioned)

Overall, I'm not concerned that 2D comes after the wells given the existing well control. It wasn't a cost move, rather a way to understand seismic better and improve future well locations that will be more risky."

"Not as much as they would materially separate. But Casey knows this, so he's got a plan and a reason. This is fractured geology and he may be testing a deeper or shallower zone.

They had quietly mentioned that they think they've found a new zone and the second well layout would perfectly tie in with that.

What they want to do is assess pressure in the fault systems to see if and how the fault systems are connected. Thats why i believe we will see two further wells this year based on the results of these two which will be located more toward the PRA.

If they are testing that discovered zone they may have mapped out a geologic peak at this location.

So watch helium content if >4%, pressure and flow. Over time with enough wells you can compare pressure to see how things are connected or how they are separate - both laterally and depth wise. Those assessments are taken by Sproule.

These wells are very cheap - low cost which makes things very efficient vs usual."