Beach said that the new drilling program commenced over the weekend with the spudding of the Naylor South-1 gas exploration well in PEP 154, northwest of Port Campbell.
The well will be immediately followed by the drilling of the nearby wildcat Buttress-1 and Naringal-1 gas targets. "Depending on the success of this new three well program, we may schedule additional wells with the aim of further expanding our Otway Basin reserves," Beach Petroleum's chief executive officer Mr Reg Nelson said.
Beach has already tasted success in the Naylor field earlier this year. The Naylor-1 discovery encountered in excess of a 30-metre net gas column. Production from this well is due to commence in the first quarter of 2002. The Naylor South-1 well is only one kilometre south southeast of Naylor-1, one of four gas discoveries in the region early this year involving Beach.
"Our confidence in the gas prospectivity of the Port Campbell area is very high," Mr Nelson said. The Naylor South-1 well is expected to take about two weeks to reach and evaluate its target zone. Participants in Naylor South-1 are Beach Petroleum (10%) and Santos (90%).
As well as its renewed Victorian program, Beach Petroleum is participating in the Marabou-1 deep water oil exploration well being drilled offshore northwest Western Australia in the Browse Basin. Mr Nelson said the well was not expected to reach and evaluate its target for about another two weeks.
The company will be a participant early in the New Year in the first oil exploration well to be drilled in newly accessed Cooper Basin tenements in South Australia.
Beach has a 25% interest in a portion only of exploration tenement PEL 90 where the drilling of the Acrasia-1 oil prospect is scheduled for the first quarter of 2002. The commencement of drilling of Acrasia-1 follows the granting of Native Title agreements in November which formally opened up tenements in the Cooper Basin relinquished by Santos and Esso three years ago, for exploration by other companies.
Acrasia-1 will test an anticlinal prospect, based upon 3D seismic data, 3.5 kilometres to the northeast of the Reg Sprigg-1 well which was drilled in 1996 by Santos and encountered approximately 20 feet of net oil bearing sandstone in the Hutton Sandstone and Tinchoo formation
