The nature of the program has required fracturing equipment to be mobilised from New Zealand with other specialty material being delivered from the United States.

In total five sandstone sequences will be targeted starting from the bottom zone and progressing individually to the uppermost zone. Due to the induced fractures propagating not only outwards from the well bore but vertically as well, almost all the potential gas zones (approximately 75%) intersected in the well will be affected to some degree and have their permeability enhanced.

Due to the previous recognised damage that water has caused, the fluid used for fracturing will be diesel fuel based. Whilst this adds considerable cost to the operation, it is unlikely to react with the formation and inhibit the gas flow.

Diesel fuel will be pumped into the formations at very high pressures until the fractures are initiated and pumping will continue until the fractures propagate to about 100 metres from the well bore.

Each zone will take about five days to frac and cleanup, with a final flow from all the zones together to be conducted for at least 20 days after the frac operation is complete.

A very hard and coarse grained proppant will be pumped into each fracture during the operation to hold the fractures open after the pressure is released.

Whicher Range-5 was suspended as a potential gas producer in January this year and is located onshore, about 200 kilometres south of Perth, Western Australia.

The favourable location of the field, about 35 kilometres south-west of the southern end of the main gas pipeline from the North-West Shelf, means it can compete on price and transport tariff with gas from the North-West-Shelf.

Participants in the well are Amity 47.957% (operator), Korea National Oil Corporation 20%, Seoul City Gas Company 15% and GeoPetro Resources Company 17.043%.