Essential's onshore program will kick off with the spudding of Koroit West-1 around 10 January. The second well in the program, Banganna-1, will then spud some time in the second half of January. The high level of activity will continue in February when a specialised rig will complete a workover of the Port Fairy-1 to devise a production testing strategy.

As for its offshore program, the company said at the end of last year it completed a 740km offshore seismic in VIC/P46 and is currently processing the data, which will be ready for interpretation next month.

Essential was granted VIC/P46 early in 2001 and is farming out up to 32.5% to Mittwell Energy Resources, an Australian subsidiary of Japanese trading house Mitsui & Co.

The company added it will continue to hold negotiations with a number of potential farm-in partners for VIC/P46 and its adjacent wholly-owned permit VIC/P50, where it intends to conduct seismic in the whale free window around October and November. Essential will also seek regulatory approval to conduct seismic work in its 100%-owned onshore permit, PEP 151.