Current Account has always taken the view that anybody who puts money into Irish exploration companies drilling for oil in tropical jungles wants their head examined. But the latest debacle at AIM-listed minnow Pan Andean must bring a sense of deja vu to Pan Andean's longsuffering shareholders.

To reprise the situation, Pan Andean shares took a swallow dive earlier this week when a seriously expensive well in the Bolivian jungle - which cost $6 million - proved to be a bit of a dud, when no gas or oil was found where John Teeling and his colleagues expected to find some.

Now cast your memory back to 1997 when Pan Andean shares took another dive as a result of a well in Bolivia - all down to leaks of two very different sorts.

At the time, Pan Andean was involved in a consortium with Aussie giant Broken Hill in a drilling venture that drove the shares up to an unimaginable 140p sterling at one stage.

Then, in an extraordinary development, a couple of renowned London short-sellers got wind that the well had been plugged and abandoned after it emerged from drilling results that the supposed oil in the Chapre structure had leaked away somewhere else. "The oil is there, it has just migrated sideways," Pan Andean's then managing director David Bramhill said at the time, in a quote that has gone into exploration folklore.

The short-sellers made a killing, selling stock they didn't own at high market prices and then buying Pan Andean shares to cover their positions when the price collapsed, as official news of the oil "leaks" finally found its way into the market.

Needless to say, a Stock Exchange investigation was carried out and, equally needless to say, nothing resulted.

Now three years on, Pan Andean's current batch of shareholders has suffered from another dud well. Pan Andean is now looking somewhere else for its jungle oil or gas. One hopes for an improvement in Pan Andean's fortunes with this next well.