Junior partner Tap Oil said as of yesterday morning, the well remained suspended and the rig evacuated as a result of cyclone Kara, which made landfall on the Pilbara coast on Wednesday as a tropical low.
It expected operator Apache would re-man the rig later this week to continue drilling and complete a horizontal development well to test the Upper Jurassic Dupuy Sandstone.
This follows last week’s announcement that the well had encountered a 60m section of thinly bedded gas-bearing sands in this objective.
In addition, Wonnich Deep-1 intersected an unswept gas zone in what Tap said could be a separate compartment of the Wonnich field.
The approach of cyclone Kara prompted the temporary shut-in of at least 172,600 barrels of oil per day, or 40% of Australia’s total output.
Operations forced to interrupt production included Woodside Petroleum, which has closed its 100,000 barrels of oil per day Cossack Pioneer field and the nearby 7000bopd Legendre, the Santos-operated Mutineer-Exeter field (55,000bopd), and the BHP Billiton-operated Griffin field (10,600bopd).
