Cooper said a Stuart Petroleum-led joint venture plans to start drilling the Patron-1 exploration well in South Australia's PEL 93 towards the end of this week or early next.
Located 14km south of the Worrior oil field, the Patron-1 well is targeting 500,000 barrels of recoverable oil at the P50 level of confidence in the McKinlay and Birkhead reservoirs. There is also secondary potential in the Murta, Epsilon and Patchawarra reservoirs.
Co-venturer Cooper Energy told the market yesterday it will be fully-carried through the drilling by its farm-in partners – Red Sky Energy and Magellan Petroleum – in a multi-well farm-in into PEL93.
If the well is successful, Cooper will retain a 15% interest in the discovery. Drilling is expected to take 15 days to drill and evaluate.
Stuart as operator holds a 36% stake in PEL 93, while Cooper holds 15% and Magellan and Red Sky each have a 24.5% stake.
Nearby, Cooper said production testing has been run at both the two new Worrior development wells.
Worrior-5 is being brought into production, while Worrior-6 is due to be completed with a workover in the near future, Cooper said.
Yesterday afternoon operator Beach Petroleum was due to spud the Callawonga-3 appraisal well in PEL 92, targeting an undrilled crest north of the oil field.
Cooper holds a 25% stake in Callawonga, while Beach holds the majority 75% share.
Meanwhile in Indonesia, Cooper said its Kurnia-1 exploration well in the South Madura production sharing contract is nearly at a total depth of 2500m.
There have been hydrocarbon shows at the well, but saturations could not be accurately determined due to the effects of drilling mud filtrate and lost circulation material, according to Cooper.
Kurnia-1's primary target in the block is the Kujung limestones, with a secondary target in the shallower Ngrayong sandstones.
A 120 square kilometre structure has been identified in the eastern part of the block on reprocessed seismic data.
Proven and probable undiscovered reserves are estimated to be 200 million barrels of oil in the Kujung, and 256 billion cubic feet of gas in the Ngrayong, Cooper said.
