Located 580 metres north east of the Mirage-1 discovery well, Mirage-2 is the first of a three well development program on the field in Cooper Basin permit PEL 115, VicPet managing director John Kopcheff said.

“If our development program on the Mirage Oil Field is successful… we should see an increase in production from the current 440 barrels of oil per day to a target 1000 barrels of oil per day by mid 2006,” Kopcheff said.

“Any increase in oil production from the Mirage Oil Field would be timely in this current time of high oil prices.”

The well was also Impress Venture’s first well to spud in a proposed nine well drilling program across its Cooper Basin acreage, the company said.

Last week, VicPet announced that production at the Mirage oil field had reached a stabilized flow rate on pump of 415 barrels per day.

The company also said interpretation of the 3D data set suggested Mirage-1 could be part of a larger feature covering about 20 square kilometres that includes the Lightning and Jindivik prospects 5km to the northeast.

The Mirage Oil Field is interpreted to contain recoverable oil reserves between 1.3 million barrels and 3.6 million barrels.

Participants and their interests in the Mirage and Ventura Oil Fields and PEL 115 are: Victoria Petroleum NL (operator and 40%), Impress Ventures Ltd (27.5%), Roma Petroleum NL (20%) and Entek Energy Ltd (12.5%)