The two previous wells, Agavero-1 and Donna Carlota-1, both made gas discoveries.

Climaco-1, which is targeting 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas reserves, will conclude the JV's current program, a precursor to a higher-impact program targeting 30-200Bcf of gas in the second half of this year.

Like its predecessors, the Climaco prospect has analogues of historic prolific Frio and Vicksburg sands production in the project area at depths of less than 2000 metres.

Empyrean Energy has a 44% interest in the Margarita project, Victoria Petroleum and Sun Resources 20% each, and Wandoo Energy 16%.

In a separate statement this morning, VicPet said the first well in the program, Dona Carlota-1, had flowed 20.5 million cubic feet of gas per day on production testing.

"While the Dona Carlota-1 well will not be produced at this rate into the sales gas pipeline...[it] demonstrates the excellent gas deliverability of the target Frio sand," the company said.

"An initial sales production rate of 1 million cubic feet per day of gas is anticipated from the 14 metre gross gas column and net pay of 5.6m over the interval 1423-1437m."