Targets are Murta, Namur, Hutton and Wimma Sandstone, all seen as potential oil-bearing zones. Stuart estimates there are potentially 4.6 million barrels of oil in place and the chance of success is 34%.

Beeville-1 is expected to reach its first target after eight days of drilling and to be at total depth after 18 days.

Stuart will be hoping for better luck with Beeville than it had elsewhere in the Cooper Basin at PEL93 where Arwon-1 has been very disappointing.

Only 2.5km from the successful Worrior field, Arwon-1 was seen as having as high chance of success. But three out of four target zones came up dry. Yesterday morning it seemed that a fifth, non-target, zone might contain gas, but a drill stem test recovered no gas to surface and 66 barrels of formation water.

A further drill stem test will be run in the McKinlay formation to determine whether oil production is possible at economic rates.

Participants in Beeville are Stuart Petroleum (operator) 20%, Hughes and Hughes 53.3% and Tri-C Resources 26.7%. Interests in Arwon-1 are Stuart Petroleum 88.8% and Cooper Energy 11.2%.