Adelaide, Nov 3, 2008 AEST (ABN Newswire) - Beach Petroleum Limited (ASX:BPT)(PINK:BEPTF) has made yet another significant natural gas discovery in the Cooper basin in South Australia, intersecting a a high quality gas sand in the Brownlow-1 wildcat exploration well.
The discovery continues Beach Petroleum's high level of recent exploration success in the basin, particularly along its western flank.
Beach will now evaluate additional hydrocarbon shows in the basal Patchawarra formation by a drill stem test over the interval 2715 m to 2722 m, to be conducted on Tuesday before casing the well for production.
The Brownlow-1 well is 2km north of Middleton-1 and 6.3 km NW of the Raven gas field in which Beach holds an interest through its subsidiary, Delhi Petroleum.
It lies 55 km northwest of Moomba.
Both Middleton-1 and the Raven wells flowed wet gas at high rates. Middleton-1 flowed at 12.4 mmcfd (million cubic feet per day) accompanied by 115 bcpd (barrels of condensate per day) on extended production test.
Significantly, the Brownlow-1 discovery holds the potential to be a large stratigraphic trap, with 3 way dip closure. Stratigraphic traps are, by their nature elusive and difficult to identify, but represent an important new breed of targets for oil and gas discoveries in the Cooper Basin. Brownlow is potentially a "pinch-out" style of trap.
Beach's Managing Director, Reg Nelson said today, "We believe that the Brownlow-1 is an important discovery in the Cooper Basin where a stratigraphic trap, with no structural component, has been deliberately targeted.
"The use of 3D seismic has most certainly been important in pinning down the target."
Wireline logging in the Brownlow-1 well in permit PEL106 at the weekend revealed the presence of a 7m thick gas sand with pressure data inferring a gas column of up to 25 metres in height .Estimates of volumetric potential are consistent with those made pre-drill and are in the range of 7 to 14 BCF.
Mr Nelson said, "The success of Brownlow-1 gives greater confidence that fields of up to 100 BCF potential may exist along the western flank in subtle traps of this nature."
Brownlow-1 is the first of 2 wells on the western flank of the Cooper basin in the current drilling testing for gas (and in particular for stratigraphic gas plays). After this program the rig will drill two development wells at the Callawonga oil field seeking to increase oil production.
Any additional production would be easily transported to Moomba through the newly commissioned Callawonga field pipeline.
The Brownlow-1 discovery continues Beach Petroleum's strong success rate on the Western flank of the Cooper basin where it has already discovered the Callawonga, Parsons, Christies and Sellicks oil fields, all of which are currently in production.
The company is planning an extensive drilling program in this region of the Cooper basin in a bid to reinforce the existing discoveries. Beach holds the largest acreage position in this area, where exploration wells are relatively low cost while exposing the company to potentially significant oil and gas discoveries.
Interests in PEL 106 are
Beach Petroleum 50% (operator)
Drillsearch Energy 50%
Contact
Reg Nelson
Beach Petroleum
08 8338 2833
Mark Lindh
Adelaide Equity
0414 551 361
Ian Howarth
Farrington National
03 9223 2455
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