The Brisbane-based major based this figure on 55.4 terajoules of output achieved in the 24 hours prior to yesterday’s announcement.

“At this rate of production QGC’s Undulla Nose may now be the largest coal seam gas field in the country,” managing director Richard Cottee said.

“This achievement is all the more significant as QGC has only been in production for a little over 12 months.”

The company said it sold more than 11.4 PJ of gas in the last quarter, 1.4 PJ of which was sold in June alone.

At the end of last month, QGC was producing gas from four neighbouring fields in the Surat Basin – Berwyndale South (PL 201 and PLA 212), Berwyndale (PLA 211),

Bellevue (PLA 247) and Argyle-Kenya (currently PL 228 and PL 179 only).

All of the gas is transported to QGC’s central processing facility at Berwyndale South before being exported to customers.

“Average gas flows from QGC’s production wells have substantially outperformed those experienced elsewhere in Australia,” it said.

By the end of June, QGC was producing 49.9 terajoules a day – equivalent to 18.2 PJ a year – with peak gas flows on the original 23 wells exceeding 1.8 million cubic feet per day.

“On 30 July 2007, the gas field set a new daily production record of 55.4 terajoules a day (equivalent to over 20.2 PJ a year),” it said.

“On the strength of these production results, QGC has the best average flow rates per well of any Australian coal seam gas field.”

In addition, QGC said that production at the two five-spot pilots at Berwyndale and Bellevue was responding to being worked-over and pumping.

The Bellevue pilot has recorded gas flows of 440,000 cubic feet per day, with Bellevue-3 producing 220,000 cfd.

The Berwyndale pilot is producing over 240,000 cfd, with Berwyndale-6 producing 182,000 cfd.