The company today said the Middleton-1 well is flowing at a stabilised rate of 12 million cubic feet per day (MMcfd) through a 52/64-inch choke.

Great Artesian said to date, about 10MMcf of gas and 1000 barrels of condensate have been produced on test.

Once about 200MMcf has been produced, the well will be shut-in for approximately 20 days for pressure build-up tests, it said.

The company’s Udacha-1 well is now shut-in for 20 days in order to ascertain pressure build-up after flowing at a stabilised flow rate of approximately 1MMcfd of gas.

“Testing entails a series of controlled gas flows and shut-ins for pressure build-up,” Great Artesian said.

“Following completion of the pressure build-ups, and retrieval of pressure data, the test results will then be analysed to determine gas-in-place.”

Meanwhile, Beach Petroleum, operator of the PPL 212 and PEL 107 joint ventures with Great Artesian, said the Century Rig-3 is likely to move onto the Kiana-2 appraisal well site next week.

Part of the proposed five-well program focused on oil targets, Kiana-2 is an appraisal well of the Kiana oil field, which will test the potential of a separate sub-culmination located approximately 750m to the southwest of Kiana-1.

This will be immediately followed by exploration wells Keeley-1, Talia-1, Appadare-1 and, subject to confirmation by recently acquired seismic, Cabbots-1.

Great Artesian’s interests in the exploration wells are subject to pre-existing farm-out arrangements, but it said it would retain a 30% minimum in each well.

Drilling of the five-well back-to-back program is expected to begin on October 4.