Yes SL that indeed was my point. Operational excellence, whether...

Yes SL that indeed was my point. Operational excellence, whether that be well design, procurement of materials, actual drilling, post drilling completion etc. etc., that is how costs that drillers control are managed.

I'm not going to get into whether the AKK mgmt team is or is not the the "best" drilling team - although it shouldn't be difficult to answer.

As far as weather goes .... its only fall weather. Its not as if they are drilling in Canada or the Artic. Besides companies like CLR who drill in Bakken Nth Dakota cite the following - my bolding

"In 2015, the Bakken team doubled capital efficiency and cut finding costs in half. This was accomplished through a combination of inventory high-grading, cost reductions and operating efficiencies. The Company reduced average drilling time for spud-to-total-depth (TD) by 23% and average drilling cost by 33%, compared to fourth quarter 2014. The average spud-to-TD time in fourth quarter 2015 was 13.4 days for a well with a two-mile lateral, down from 17.4 days for fourth quarter 2014."

2 miles ~ 10,500 feet which equates to ~800 feet/day.

Pierre wells are what .... 3,500 - 4,000 feet roughly to get to TD?

Admittedly they are drilling them with a lot of moving about (to accommodate the testing program) but it will be about 24 weeks from when the drill bit start on well #1 until it stops with well #3 .... not including the testing.

So as SL points out, the bigger cost may well turn out to be the G&A tradeoff to what the well would really cost (like the original $1M back in 2014??)

Look beyond the headlines and its not weather.