“We are heading into the most exciting period this company has ever seen,” Kelso told delegates of the Excellence in Upstream Energy conference held in Sydney yesterday.
“And that’s on top of last year, where we made oil discovery after oil discovery.”
Indeed, it was through participating in the Santos-operated Cooper Oil Project that saw Drillsearch achieve the highest drilling success rate in the Cooper Basin of any ASX-listed junior last year.
It recorded a 77% success on the 111 wells drilled during 2006, posting one small incremental gain after another.
As a result of these efforts, the Perth-based company expects to collect around $15 million at the end of the 2006-07 financial year, growing to $20 million in the following 12 months.
Just over a week ago, Drillsearch announced it had secured ExxonMobil as a farm-in partner to one of its Bonaparte Gulf permits.
The agreement surrounds the drilling of the Marina-1 well, located in Western Australia permit WA-318-P, which is targeting 200-250 million barrels of oil potential.
The Marina Prospect, which will be drilled in September using the Premium Wilcraft jack-up rig, was identified on seismic surveys undertaken by Drillsearch, after which its technical team followed-up with extensive geoscience work.
“This well will be relatively expensive – at around $11 million – to drill,”
Kelso said.
“But we’re not a one-stop wonder either. Hopefully we’ll drill an appraisal well at Marina in 2008, for when we’ve got a rig booked.”
In addition to WA-318-P, Drillsearch has title to another two permits in the southern Bonaparte Gulf, including 100% of the Turtle and Barnett oil discoveries in retention leases WA13R and NT/RL3, respectively.
Kelso says the company saw the Bonaparte region as a major opportunity when it bought into Turtle/Barnett in 2004.
These fields lie about 40km offshore in shallow water and are estimated to contain 70-90MMbbl in several zones.
The company has also identified significant updip potential at Turtle of around 40MMbbl.
“We’re very, very confident we would have farmed-out [an interest] here to a partner shortly,” he said.
