The deviated well, which was drilled from the Gibson/South Plato Platform, discovered an oil column of less than 2m thickness in the target Flagstone Sandstone, according to junior partner Tap Oil.
“While the South Gibson-1 well has been drilled very efficiently, the volume of oil associated with a 2-metre column is too small to warrant commercial development,” Tap said in a statement on Friday.
South Gibson-1, which was subsequently plugged and abandoned, follows the HJV’s previous failure at the Gobi-1 well, also located in TL/1 and drilled from the Gibson/South Plato facility.
Although Gobi-1 encountered a 5m oil column, operator Apache Northwest deemed the find too small for commercial development and plugged and abandoned the well.
These two results follow a string of dusters for the HJV, which launched the exploration campaign in a bid to offset decreasing output caused by natural field decline. The best result was seen at the earlier West Cycad-1 well, which made an “encouraging” discovery of a 9m oil column.
The drilling rig has now left the HJV to drill Bricklanding-1 in TP/7, where Tap is also a participant.
Tap has a 12.22% interest in HJV, while operator Apache Northwest has a 68.5% stake and Kufpec Australia, 19.28%.
