The company has said SIS drilling is expected to boost production rates and open up areas that were previously inaccessible to drilling.

Sydney Gas today said after finishing drilling on November 2, a production liner was installed across the horizontal section and wellhead on November 4.

Total length of the well was about 1995m with 1160m drilled horizontally through the coal seam.

“This is believed to be a New South Wales record for an SIS well,” Sydney Gas said.

The company said rig 16, which drilled the well, has been skidded off-hole to allow well completion operations to begin in order to prepare the well for production testing.

The same rig is expected to resume work in mid November at Glenlee-15, the second SIS well located in Stage II of the Camden Gas Project.

The company said Glenlee-14 and 15 will both test horizontal production performance from the Bulli coal seam in an area where nearby vertical wells have already demonstrated good production performance.

“Higher gas flow rates are expected from SIS wells compared with the equivalent vertical wells on the basis of both theoretical models and empirical evidence,” Sydney Gas said.

“It is anticipated that further application of this drilling technique will allow commercial exploitation of gas reserves that would otherwise be difficult to access because of land use constraints.”

Glenlee-15 is expected to be drilled before the end of the calendar year.

AGL Energy Limited is operator of the Camden Gas project with a 50% interest while Sydney Gas owns the remaining stake.