Only minor quantities of gas have so far flowed during production testing of the Huinga-1B sidetrack well in PEP 38716 east of Stratford. However, operator Marabella Enterprises, a subsidiary of Aussie firm Bligh Oil and Minerals (BOM), is unperturbed.
Over 280,000 barrels of drilling mud and lost circulation material were lost during last month's drilling, a lot of that into the fractured Murihiku Group metasediments basement rock.
The well is still cleaning up and the testing program is yet to enter its second phase, testing the Eocene-aged Kapuni formation before moving up to test the Murihiku group.
BOM said an acid wash of the well would now be done, to remove any lost material that might be stopping the flow of oil.
Commentators are hoping Huinga will prove to be the size of the more northern McKee oil field, which has produced over 40 million barrels of oil and 80 bcf since 1984.
Huinga, in licence PEP 38716, is on the eastern margin trend, the prospectivity of which has been established by the more southern onshore Rimu and Kauri discoveries, and further enhanced by the results of the recently drilled and suspended Makino-1 well.
