In drilling news, the eagerly awaited follow up to Acrasia-1 oil discovery in the SA section of the Cooper Basin spudded this week. The Stuart/Beach Petroleum JV is looking to expand the Acrasia oilfield resource by exploring the western section.
Origin kicked off its 2002 Perth Basin drilling program with the spudding of the exploration well Hovea-2.
Staying in the Perth Basin, three Australian explorers – Roc, Bounty and Voyager - have picked up some prime acreage in the Basin not far from the Cliff Head discovery.
The farmin strategies of Santos have been vindicated with its Indonesia wildcat well, Maleo-1, intersecting hydrocarbons. Follow up flow tests confirmed the discovery.
Junior explorer and producer Mosaic Oil believes oil resources in the Downlands area in Queensland’s Surat Basin could be worth in excess of $40 million to the company.
In the markets, the initial public offering of hopeful explorer Sunshine Gas has closed oversubscribed. Buoyed by Mosaic’s drilling results in adjacent areas, Sunshine will use the funds to drill in ATP 645P.
Beautiful one day, not so perfect the next, the Queensland Government’s decision to award Townsville power station’s gas supply contract to a coalbed methane player has hit the share price of Oil Search hard. While the decision may not have killed off the PNG-Queensland gas pipeline completely, many investors consider the lost tender as a vote on no-confidence in the pipeline.
Mermaid Marine’s move into offshore contracting has proved disastrous as Mermaid’s customers viewed the Fremantle-based company as a potential competitor. As a result it was forced to revise full year profit forecasts as its vessel business slumped.
Engineering concern United Group secured a multi-million dollar mechanical erection contract from Woodside Energy for the fourth train of the North West Shelf LNG project.
Geothermal hopeful Geodynamics was in the markets looking to raise cash to fund its development of renewable geothermal energy, which will use innovative hot dry rock technology in the Cooper Basin.
Another renewable player Pacific Hydro said it was on track for a strong profit result this year after receiving the final payment of a big insurance claim for a typhoon, which damaged its power plant in the Philippines.
In the boardroom, Amity Oil’s Peter Allchurch finally stepped down as managing director of the company he founded. He will assume a position as executive director. The move comes after months of tension between Mr Allchurch and the company’s largest shareholder, Tony Barton. The two men disagreed on the direction the company should take. Staying with Amity, the company also kicked off its 3D seismic shoot in Turkey’s Gocerler Basin.
In other overseas news, PCH Group hopes of being a major player in the oil and gas sector seems to be on target after securing a Letter of Intent from BP to supply scaffolding and coating services for BP’s big Caspian Sea project.
ABB signed $US230 million worth of contracts with Norway’s Statoil.
A new business unit specialising in deepwater composites technology has been formed by a joint venture comprising Aker Kvaerner and Conoco.
Finally, in New Zealand, one of the partners in the joint venture drilling Huinga-1B have cautioned others not to get too excited after the well had intersected hydrocarbons. Indo-Pacific chief Dave Bennett said without a flow test and after experiencing some drilling problems in the lower section of the hole, one should not jump to conclusions.
