On Dec 14, Rex Tillerson was referencing Slide 8 (which included a star by Hungary and other projects) when he said the following;

"Moving to Europe, our portfolio in Germany includes a prospective shale gas opportunity, covering almost 900,000 net acres and a coal bed methane play covering an additional 2 million net acres. In Hungary, we continue to evaluate our tight gas acreage. Most recently, we established a significant onshore acreage position in Poland with over 1 million net acres, where we believe there is significant shale gas potential."

Seems to me that if they planned on walking away, don't you think the works might be something different such as 'Our initial results were disappointing and we are currently considering where we are going proceed to the next phase in the MAKO trough in Hungary? (Maybe not the carefully constructed words a CEO from XOM would choose. But I think that had they not planned on continuing they would not have used the words "In Hungary, we continue to evaluate our tight gas acreage".

One who's name is on Mako's resource evaluation is Gene B. Wiggins, P.E., is Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Scotia Group, Inc., He is a former National President of the Society of Petroleum Evaluation Engineers. He is not a slouch. They are a very respectable firm that has been hired by clients such as BP, Chevron and Shell. He says there is 50% chance of 38TCF of resources for FO. That is 77% of what XTO has for total resources. (although XTO has 13.9 TCF proved reserves). Why would they walk away with one strike because the pitcher pitched on in the dirt. They went to the bull pen and brought out Mariano Rivera (XTO).

XOM drilled into a what was a hopefull prolific fracture line that was filled with fresh water to the surprise of there embarrassed staff and was a costly mistake. I feel it is no coincidence that XTO was brought on for their expertise. I question whether the decision was made quickly when it was obvious that there engineers was lacking expertise in this arena or did they anticipate there shortcomings in regards to the unconventional platform.

A question was raised by Jason Gammel - Macquarie Research Equities - Analyst "ExxonMobil always takes a very measured approach to this type of a transaction. Can you talk about how long this decision was in the making? Is this a multi-year study that led to this transaction or was this relatively quick?" (Under his breath probably thinking after the failure of the Foldeak well 2 months ago).