The well, located in the Foreland Basin about 50km 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 from the Iagifu and Toro objectives 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, according to junior partner, Horizon Oil.

The source rock “kitchen” is interpreted to be the thick sequence of organic rich rocks in the Omati Trough to the east and south of the prospect. These are thought to be at peak maturity for oil generation.

Oil shows in several wells drilled in the area indicate that Kapul is well-placed relative to the source rocks and migration pathway to be charged with hydrocarbons, according to Horizon.

Good quality Iagifu sandstone reservoir and moderate quality Toro sandstone were penetrated at the Kamusi-1 well, 10 km south of Kapul. The quality is expected to be maintained or improved at Kapul.

The regional Ieru formation seal rock drilled at Kamusi in anticipated to be thicker at Kapul. Interpretation of the faulting of the structure provides confidence of fault seal.

Interests in Kapul-1 include Oil Search Limited 70% (operator), Horizon Oil International Limited 20% and Gedd (PNG) Limited 10%.