The well, located in the Foreland Basin about 50 km southeast of the Kimu gas discovery, will test the Toro and Iagifu sandstone intervals in the seismically-defined Kapul structure.
The terrain is mainly swampland and the pipeline from Kutubu to the coast runs within 75km of the Kapul prospect.
The well has a planned total depth of 3,170m and operations on the well are expected to take about 30 days from spud to total depth.
Mean unrisked recoverable reserves are 113 million barrels of oil, of which about 80 million barrels are in the primary Iagifu target and the balance in the secondary Toro objective.
Interests in Kapul-1 include Oil Search Limited 70% (operator), Horizon Oil International Limited 20% and Gedd (PNG) Limited 10%.
