The Rookwood East-1 well is 550 metres southeast of the original Rookwood South-1 discovery well.

“The Rookwood East-1 well is designed to explore/appraise the eastern flank of the Rookwood Oil Field," said Victoria Petroleum John Kopcheff.

"The hydrocarbon potential of the three Boxvale sands intersected in Rookwood South-1 will be further appraised. If the well intersects an oil column it will be cased and suspended for future oil production.”

The Rookwood Oil Field is interpreted from seismic data to have the potential to contain up to 11 million barrels of recoverable oil in the target Jurassic Boxvale Sandstone, according to Kopcheff.

The target Boxvale Sandstone is expected to be intersected at 1,387 metres.

Rookwood East-1 is part of a four well drilling program kick-started on 16 November which also includes the Rookwood West-1, Rookwood Central-1 and Rookwood South Central-1 appraisal wells.

As of 22 November, the well had been drilled to a depth of 161 metres. Planned TD is 1,428 metres.

The operator is Oilex NL (59.06%). The other partners in the venture are Victoria Petroleum (29.69%) and private interests (11.25%).

Meanwhile the Victoria Petroleum-operated Canberra-1A exploration well in the South Australian Copper Basin has reached its total depth of 2,440 m.

Wire line logs and sidewall cores will be run at the Cooper Basin's Canberra-1A to evaluate the significance of trace oil shows observed within the target Permian section.

During the drilling of the target Permian section, trace oil shows were observed in one zone in the secondary Epsilon formation along with trace oil shows in three zones in the Patchawarra sands.

Elevated background gas readings were observed in the Patchawarra shale, siltsone and coal sequence.

No gas shows were observed while drilling in the Patchawarra sands that would correlate with the seismic “spectral anomaly” observed for the Canberra Prospect.

The Canberra Prospect lies 9km to the southwest of the Santos-operated Permian Toolachee Gas Field with recoverable reserves of 988 billion cubic feet of gas and 21 million barrels of oil.

It was interpreted to have the potential within Permian sands to contain up to 161 billion cubic feet of gas and 4 million barrels of oil, if oil and gas are present.

Interests in PEL 115 are Victoria Petroleum N.L (operator) 40%, Roma Petroleum N.L. 20%, Impress Ventures Ltd 15%, Entek Energy Ltd 12.5% and Tacnas Pty Ltd 12.5%