Adelaide, Mar 7, 2006 AEST (ABN Newswire) - One of the strongest gas flows recorded in the Cooper Basin area of South Australia has been achieved overnight on a new wildcat well drilled by Beach Petroleum Limited (ASX: BPT) and its joint venture partner, Great Artesian Oil and Gas Limited.
Beach Petroleum announced today a gas flow of 11 million cubic feet a day from a drill stem test of the Patchawarra Formation on the Middleton-1 discovery well, 50 kilometres west of Moomba.
The flow - from a 10 metre interval between 2653 and 2663 metres depth - was through a choke size of 5/8" at the very strong flowing pressure of 1,170 psi.
The Company said the tested sands were interpreted to have approximately seven metres of net gas pay.
The joint venture believes that between three and nine metres of additional gas pay is likely in other sands.
"The high productivity of the Middleton test, combined with additional potential within the well and structure make Middleton one of the more exciting gas prospects in the Cooper Basin in recent years," Beach Petroleum's Managing Director, Mr Reg Nelson, said today.
"Further evaluation will need to be carried out, however, before the joint venture can obtain a truer picture of the gas reserves addressed within the Middleton structure."
The Middleton well is just six kilometres northeast of the Santos-operated Raven gas field and eight kilometres southeast of the Great Artesian-operated Smegsy gas field, only commissioned in recent days. The discovery follows on from Beach's recently drilled wildcat discovery, Udacha-1 itself only 5 kilometres to the northeast.
Mr Nelson said the close proximity of the Middleton, Udacha, Smegsy and Raven fields was highly indicative of the region's gas potential and fell within Beach Petroleum's exploration model of pushing westwards from Moomba into the area's under-explored petroleum acreage.
Middleton-1 will now be cased and suspended to await appropriate completion equipment.
Participants in the Middleton-1 well are:
Beach Petroleum Ltd (Operator)* 50.00%
Great Artesian Oil and Gas Ltd 50.00%
* subject to commercial discovery
Contact
Reg Nelson
Beach Petroleum Limited
TEL: +61 8 8338 2833
Kevin Skinner
Senior Consultant
FIELD PUBLIC RELATIONS
231 South Road
MILE END SA 5031
Tel: (08) 8234 9555
Fax: (08) 8234 9566
Mob: 0414 822 631
kevin@fieldpr.com.au
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