In its quarterly report, released on Tuesday, the Perth-based junior said during the 2006 September quarter, its estimated net share of production from its US operations was 181.9 million cubic feet of gas and 1903 barrels of oil.
Based on current production rates, Golden Gate’s gross share of production from Padre Island is currently around 2MMcf of gas and 21bbl of oil per day, it said.
Golden Gate told PetroleumNews.net that the Kindee ST212-1 well, targeting the Plum Deep Structure, is drilling ahead at a measured depth of 14,300ft. The total planned depth of the well, 16,400ft, is expected to be reached in the middle of this month.
Plum Deep has an estimated gross P50 reserve potential of about 293 billion cubic feet of gas. The upside potential (P10) is 952Bcf.
Golden Gate operates the well with a 37.5% interest and under arrangements with partners Japanese company Lodore and AIM-listed Pantheon Resources, it will contribute 33.33% towards the drilling costs to casing point.
Lying within the same fault trap as the Dunn-Peach-6 well, Kindee ST212-1 is targeting deeper reservoirs, between 9500ft and 16,500ft. Dunn-Peach-6 was confirmed as a discovery earlier this year and is flowing 1.9MMcfd of gas.
The company also said the Kindee well is the first of eight wells to be drilled on Padre Island over the next two years.
"The island has a mixture of shallow and deep plays," executive chairman Sam Russotti told PNN.
“We have begun drilling high-impact, deep prospects and are close to restarting development of the lower risk, shallow prospects.
"Many of the deeper targets have reserves potential in the 100Bcf-plus range, and with good 3D seismic and very little deep drilling having been done on the island so far there are plenty of targets to choose from."
Extensive evaluation had confirmed six mature, quality, deep exploration targets of which Plum Deep, Manzano and Murdock South had been identified as the largest. Each offered the potential for significant additional reserves and early cash flow, Russotti said.
Golden Gate plans to drill all currently defined prospects, except possibly Kingsway, from onshore, with the advantage of substantially reduced costs for exploration and development compared with offshore drilling. Onshore drilling would also significantly cut production lead times in the event of commercial successes.
Golden Gate also released its annual report yesterday, revealing that total revenue for the 2005-06 financial year increased more than sevenfold to $4.4 million, compared to $584,210 in the previous year.
“As a result of the progress made over the past year, 2007 promises to be a very exciting year for the company and its shareholders.”
