As well as Innamincka, two other joint ventures – one led by Eagle Bay Resources and the other by Victoria Petroleum – also remained on standby.

In a statement on Friday, Innamincka said access and wellsite construction activity at its Flax oil field had been hampered by the current rainfalls.

But in some good news, the company said the drilling contractor, Ensign, had finished refurbishing Rig 30, adding that rigging up operations were on track for early next month.

In addition, Innamincka has finalised the 2007 oil transportation and sales agreement with the Cooper Basin Producers.

Meanwhile in PEL 182, Eagle Bay announced that the rain had forced it to demobilise the crews from the drilling rig and suspend operations at its Vanessa-1 exploration well until the roads re-open to heavy trucks.

On Friday, the company said it expected this would take between four and seven days to occur.

The bad weather also prompted VicPet to halt drilling last week at the VicPet-operated Growler-2 appraisal well in PEL 104. The company has not yet announced that drilling has re-started on the well.

Also last week, the Santos-operated Moomba-31ST1 gas development well was shut down due to poor weather.

This is part of the South Australian Cooper Basin Producers joint venture (Santos 66.6%, Beach Petroleum 20.21% and Origin Energy 13.19%).