I remember long ago when verbal requests for bid would come in like "well, just give me a quick guess, maybe within 10%... oh, and tell me which way."

Insufficient data means you simply don't know. Probabilities based on insufficient data are just swags, have no meaning.


Spoken like an engineer.  (Are you one?)  But decision makers almost never have the luxury of sufficient data.  And so they mentally navigate the "fog of war" with probabilities.
Was, now retired. Mechanical, specialty nuclear heat exchangers and prssure vessels.

Regarding SA, I agree with simmons that there is not enough data to guess future production, even though the clues seem to point to major problems. Like many, I guess that they will have difficulty getting back to 9.5mm/d regardless of the number of rigs, but moving from an avg of 18 to, say, 180 may be enough to increase production for a time. They have clearly decided to do their best, we will just have to wait and see. I don't see how anybody not closely involved could assign probabilities.