Ex, you are technically correct.  This is a geological CoS....

Ex, you are technically correct.  This is a geological CoS.  Commercial quantification in the sense of revenue greater than all in sunk costs is not a factor in this CoS, from my understanding.  A better usage of words in my earlier comment would have been "finding material quantities of extractable oil".  Because it needs to be material in order to be (potentially) commercially viable.  Otherwise that journey ends.

As an illustration, one of our WB consortium partners participated in an exploration drill last month in GoM with a high CoS (around 50% from memory). It was ultimately unsuccessful as according to them "despite strong hydrocarbon indications on mud logs, insufficient producible reservoir wasencountered to justify setting production casing.  The well is currently being plugged and abandoned as a sub-commercial well."

All IMO.