They won't get any additional info on wellbore stability from drilling the vertical I wouldn't think. They already have four vertical wells there. As rexsh said SLB have done the geomechanical study and the company should have a pretty good idea of what the stress field looks like, and how stable the bore is likely to be. Presumably the prediction is it will be stable or else they would change the direction they are drilling in.
No change to my forecast on current info - 40% still seems reasonable.
Although for non-technical factors affecting the drill, I do notice there appears to be heavy rainfall coming for Western Queensland which will no doubt flow into the Channel Country and eventually towards Lake Eyre. BOM is forecasting up to 400mm around Boulia this weekend. Higgins Storm Chasing is forecasting up to 550mm and calling it potentially all-time record breaking rain and flooding.
Higgins is more sensationalist than BOM (they are a private business trying to attract subscribers) and tend to be more extreme in their forecasts than the more conservative BOM, but I have found they are often accurate, sometimes moreso than BOM. So it seems highly likely the Channel Country is in for a major drenching and this will probably migrate into the Klebb area. Could be a delay coming up. Let's wait and see how much rain there is.
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