Adelaide-headquartered Beach Petroleum’s latest weekly drilling report says the rig has finished the foundation pile for the subsea production manifold linking one Manta and four Basker wells, and was released last Monday.

Beach Petroleum yesterday said although there had been no further activity on the Basker-2, 4 and 5 wells since its last report, the Basker-3 well had been re-entered to bypass a faulty valve at the bottom of the tubing string, was flow tested and successfully suspended.

The well flowed at a rate of 7105 barrels of oil per day through a 56/64-inch choke with an average wellhead pressure of 1807psi. The gas-oil ratio was 1807 cubic feet:bbl, with water cut of about 1.7%.

Operator Anzon Australia and Beach are 50:50 joint venture partners in the Basker-Manta project.

The Ocean Patriot is now moving to drill Longtom-3, also on Gippsland. Following that project, it will relocate to New Zealand.