It is the first of possibly four wells in the prospective African region, and one which could finally put bankable figures to the discovery, enabling the partners to start designing an offshore production facility.
At the smaller end of town, partners Stuart and Beach have trucked off their first oil sales from the Acrasia-1 extended production test. With no water contact yet and a steady reservoir pressure, the two companies hold out high hopes for the field.
The Perth Basin is literally having a testing time with the Woodada-19 and Hovea discoveries. Bounty has gone back to test the Woodada-19 well, which earlier operations had clogged up with lost circulation material. Significant downhole pressures have given them fair hope.
ARC Energy has found a deeper gas zone in the Perth Basin as it and partner Origin Energy test their Hovea oil discovery. They will now drill a completely new well, Hovea-3, to test the shallower oil pool.
On the other side of the country, Woodside and partners have received the environmental go-ahead to develop the Otway Basin Geographe and Thylacine discoveries. The fields contain an estimated 800 bcf and 9 million barrels of condensate in reserves.
This week Sydney Gas has finally achieved their Government consents to start gas production, even though the lads have been in production for the past year. They've had a fairly backward run at it, as the NSW Government has lacked a petroleum production licence process and has had to write one on the fly. It makes one wish one could build a pub, run it for 12 months and then apply for a liquor licence, using the same principle.
Crossing to the Land of the Long White Stoush, we see a mediator appointed to resolve the depleting Maui gas reserves issue and the gloves come off in the Goldie spat between Indo-Pacific and Greymouth. Texan group Netherland Sewell and Associates will apportion the dwindling gas reserves among the squabbling Maui customers while Greymouth have taken their argument with Indo-Pacific to the High Court. Will we see a bloody nose for Greymouth?
The former Energy Equity - now Energy World Corporation - had defeat snatched from the jaws of victory this week after the directors of mooted merger partner Pacific Energy, cancelled the deal after seeing one of their investments come good and light a fire under their own stock. Share price parity was not achieved, the deal was pulled, and the plans of common managing director, Stewart Elliott, who has 57% of the former and 17% of the latter, have bitten the dust. Power to the independent directors, it would seem.
Another deal pulled this week was the mega-merger betwwen Veritas and PGS. While details are sketchy, reading between the lines one can see that the previous two amendments revolved around the sale of PGS' Atlantic unit. The two companies had even unveiled a new logo.
And on a final tragic note, it seems that damage to its rotor blade caused by a lightning strike three years ago was the probable cause of the crash that killed 11 passengers and crew off the UK coast last month.
