The day after Alexander's speech and announcement, all parties that had been involved in the bidding went crazy. Including those spectating "experts", of course.
Many of them complained about why the country had decided to trust an inexperienced company that had never been involved in the oil industry to drill the reserves.
Others that had watched Alexander's speech understood that he wanted to develop a domestic industry and chose a local company, Connect, as a way to kickstart their domestic growth. Even though they weren't an oil company, at least they had some kind of "drilling" experience... for whatever it mattered. Drilling for oil had nothing in common with drilling tunnels, after all.