BHP external affairs personnel were unable to be contacted for comment. Australian listing rules say drilling information must be distributed to partners an hour before being released to the market so all parties can ‘read from the same page’ and correct any items of dispute.

On the assumption Apache followed this protocol (it was unable to confirm this before press time) BHP has been in possession of this information for at least two days. Even if this had not been the case, EnergyReview.net and other media reported the find yesterday morning giving BHP time to release a report during the day.

Contrary to today’s report in the Australian newspaper, BHP had reported the water-wet results of the Knott-1 well on Tuesday, incorrectly named in the article as the Knox-1 well.

The US-based Apache released a statement also on Tuesday saying it had discovered a 97-foot oil column (37 feet of net sand) in the Pyrenees member of the Cretaceous-age Barrow group. This latest find backs up the initial discovery well which yielded a 121-foot net oil column and a 26-foot net gas column.

Last year, Apache president Steven Ferris said the company was confident it had opened a new oil play south of its existing Carnarvon Basin production. A follow up well for Stickle is planned later this month.

Tuesday’s release from Apache attributed Australian managing director Eve Howell as being encouraged by the better than expected results.

"The top of the Pyrenees member in Ravensworth-2 was 49 feet higher than we expected, while the oil-water contact in this well is at the same depth encountered in the discovery," said Eve Howell, Apache's regional vice president for Australia. "That's good news, because it extends the area of the field considerably farther north than we had it mapped based on the Ravensworth-1 discovery well."

BHP’s Ravensworth project manager, Mike Ollis, is in Houston this week. Apache has a 28.57% interest in Ravensworth-2 with BHP Billiton, the operator, holding the remaining 71.43% interest.