The exploration well is located around 150km north of Moomba and 25km north of the Keleary oil field. It will test a well-defined structure with assessed potential highside recoverable reserves of 3.3 million barrels (mmbbl) of oil (potential mean of 1.5mmbbl).

The Semaphore structure lies along the northwestern flank of the Patchawarra Trough, an area known to have generated significant volumes of both oil and gas and the source area for commercial accumulations in permits immediately to the south.

The Poolowanna and Tinchoo Formations are the primary targets for Semaphore-1 and are expected to be intersected mid next week. A secondary target, the Hutton Sandstone, is expected to be intersected early next week.

Both Cooper and Beach have had recent successes in the region with the Worrior-1 and Kenmore wells respectively, while Magellan has taken control of the producing Nockatunga assets from Voyager.

Interests in the well are Beach Petroleum (operator) 37.5%, Cooper Energy 25% and Magellan Petroleum 37.5%.