The acquired geological data are valuable and costly, and must be properly used to confirm or deny whether the play pursued has been properly tested. The risk of errors of omission (i.e., walking away from a prospective area because an inconclusive well has been drilled), must be balanced with the risk of errors of commission (i.e., failing to "kill" a bad play in due time). Furthermore, the company must learn from its experiences and incorporate these lessons in subsequent exploration projects and individual wells.

Often, there is no time for the organization to analyze past results and extract lessons learned; thus, courses curves are often forgotten and painfully revisited later. Because Scotia’s consultants are knowledgeable, objective and immune to internal politics, we offer detailed and thorough hindsight reviews and evaluations of the results of exploration programs. We do this by conducting post-mortems of wildcats to analyze the exploration effectiveness and efficiency, the evaluation and decision making processes, and any deviations from geological prognoses and operating AFE’s due to unsystematic and systematic errors and biases, gaming, etc. We use our findings to recommend changes in methodologies, processes, and decision criteria.