Eagle Bay announced on Wednesday that the drill stem test tools had got stuck in the well and so the operator spent the rest of the week unsuccessfully trying to remove them.

The company then gave up on this endeavour and instead started sidetracking the well around the tools yesterday.

Meanwhile, Lakes has been forced to abandon drilling its Boola Boola-2 well in PEP 166 because the drill string became suck.

It was deepening the well to evaluate the area’s geothermal potential.

The Melbourne-based company attributed the mishap to a loss of circulation in the well for several hours because the mud pumps ran out of fuel.

“We have now severed the lower section of the drilling string enabling logs to be run and sidewall cores to be cut,” Lakes chairman Robert Annells said.

“These results will be extremely important for Lakes Oil and its associate Greenearth Energy, [which] holds the geothermal lease covering the area.”

Lakes will hold off on re-entering the well until a later date, at which point drilling may divert around the blocked area and into the proposed geothermal targets.

Before abandoning the well, Lakes said it would take a series of heat measurements.

Having drilled the Boola Boola-2 and Hazelwood-2 wells, Lakes has earned an additional 25% equity in the permit from AusAm Resources, taking its total interest to 75%.

The Century Rig-11 is now being moved to the Alberton-1 well site, in PEP 158, where drilling is due to start either later this week or early next week.

Alberton-1 is a follow-up to core holes drilled in the 1980s, designed to investigate the coal potential of the area.

“Near the Alberton township, they encountered laminated clay stones similar to low-grade oil shales,” Lakes said.

“This well will test those clay stones, as well as its primary target, the Strzelecki Formation.”