PEP 38460 partner New Zealand Oil & Gas this morning reported elevated gas and good oil shows in cuttings from 4055m to past 4102m. It said once the 4200m total depth had been reached wireline logs would be run to evaluate the significance of these shows and those encountered at the 3910-3917m interval earlier this week.

“We have drilled more than fifty metres into this hydrocarbon bearing interval and are still in it. We do not know how far it goes, though we do not expect it to be the wonderful interval encountered at (the more northern) Tui,” NZOG exploration manager Eric Matthews told EnergyReview.Net from Brisbane this morning.

“We still have no firm view on what sands we are in, they could well be the Kapuni F sands, but we just don’t know. This well has thrown a few surprises at us.”

Matthews - who on Monday predicted “very significant and exciting times” in the west-of-Maui permit - was a little more circumspect today.

“We only have data from the mud logs and it will not be until the electric logs are done and the results known that we will have a good idea of what we have struck.”

He doubted whether the latest interval or the shallower one would be the 100% net-to-gross hydrocarbon-bearing interval struck at Tui-1 last year.

The Diamond Offshore Ocean Bounty is certainly proving to be the lucky rig for the PEP 38460 partners, having discovered Tui last year and the nearby Amokura field, another Eocene-aged Kapuni F sands find, earlier this year.

After drilling the Takapou-1 well for Shell NZ, OMV and Todd Energy in nearby PEP 38482, the Bounty is due to return to drill Pateke-1 and Kiwi-1 in the oil-bearing equilateral triangle in the north of PEP 38460.