However, oil and gas operations manager Richard Crowe admitted the onshore Taranaki well was finished and the Parker Drilling 252 rig was being demobilised. "That's all we are saying at the moment," he told Energy Review.Net today.
He declined to comment on rumours that the well had reached its target depth of 1083m without finding any significant hydrocarbons.
Patea East-1 was targeting shallow Miocene-aged sandstones within the Patea prospect, which Todd Energy believes straddles three permits PEP 38737, 760 and 719, and appears to be separated into eastern and western parts by a subsurface basement ridge.
Last month Maui-Kapuni operator Shell Todd Oil Services had used the same rig to drill the deviated The Patea-1 location is interpreted to be on the same structural closure, but updip, of some of Swift Energy New Zealand's Kauri wells, which have already flowed oil from the shallow Manutahi sandstones.
