you were in charge and oil was predicted to go as low as 20, what would have you done? Hidsight is perfect, why deplete your resources for 10/bbl and then paying the operational cost? I think management acted responsilby.

That's the multi-million dollar question. Many have taken a stand on it, one way or the other. Myself? I vacillate. If you drill down to the four key words in that question, "why deplete your resources," then the answer is very simple. You don't. If you expect the price of oil to rise in the long-term, and it is a resource that does not decay, then waiting is absolutely your best option.

But when total eventual resource recovery comes into play, it's a whole new ball game. I guess in a sense there was one value to this - the entire SAGD industry has probably learned a lesson from this experiment.

There's also NPV modelling that has to be taken into account. Shorting your production by say 1 million barrels in 2009 (hypothetically guessing a 5000 bpd reduction for 200 days), versus getting that 1 million barrels on the back end in 20+ years. Hm. The accountants are probably the only ones who have really thought in depth about the NPV issues relating to the reduction.

A very complex issue.