The Ocean Bounty semi-submersible spudded the well in the Browse Basin on the 19th June. The well is located in 274 metres of water, and depending on the results, the rig will be on location for several weeks.

Production testing is planned in the event of a discovery, and there are several more wells lined up to be drilled immediately if Ichthys is successful.

Woodside made the original Brewster discovery in 1980 when the NWS joint venture partners held the field. The JV passed in the permit, despite recognising its scale, to focus on less remote targets closer to the main NWS fields to the south-west.

Inpex is now interested in utilising the estimated 600 million barrels of oil in the project with speculation about a tie-up with gas groups for any gas development.

A possible option would be a tie-up with the nearby Woodside Petroleum-operated Scott Reef-Brecknock oil and gasfields. Scott Reef-1 was drilled in 1971 and Brecknock-1 was drilled in 1979.

A combined project, with reserves of more than 30 tcf of gas and close to one billion barrels of condensate, would be more than three times the size of the recently-approved Bayu-Undan development in the Timor Sea and rival the North West Shelf project.

The next phase of drilling will be used to confirm the figures and provide an accurate guide to future production rates.

Inpex, which is half-owned by the Japanese Government's Japan National Oil Corporation, picked up the permit in June 1998 by committing $90 million to an exploration program - nicknamed the 'Dead Fish' wells after their fossilised piscatorial namesakes.

The company has drilled three wells, Dinichthys, Gorgonicthys and Titanichthys and achieved flow rates of up to 22 million cubic feet of gas and 3000 barrels of condensate per day.