Entek said the ATP-269 JV decided to plug and abandon Nudgee-1 following electric logging results.

The Marcoola prospect, about 35km southwest of Eromanga, is a fault dependent four-way dip closure.

Drilling is expected to start next Tuesday and take 10 days to a reach a total depth of 1342m.

Primarily the well is targeting the Middle to Late Jurassic sands of the Hutton Sandstone and the thin basal sands of the Birkhead Formation, while secondary potential exists in the Westbourne Formation, the Wyandra Sandstone and the Murta Formation.

Structural mapping at the Hutton level indicates that the prospect has about 30m of structural relief and an aerial extent of 1.5 square kilometres.

Last year’s Trocus 3D seismic has been used in the structural interpretation.

Entek said the Marcoola prospect has been found to lie along trend from the prolific Tintaburra-Toobunyah oil fields, which have produced about 5 million barrels of oil, and the Sirius-1 exploration well, which recovered oil from the Birkhead/Hutton interval.

Interests in ATP-269 are Beach Petroleum (operator - 46.95%), Entek Energy (28.15%), IOR Exploration (20%) and Santos (4.9%).