Managing director Tino Guglielmo said the significance of the Padulla discovery was still being evaluated, but the field was estimated to contain between 850,000 (P50) to 3.4 million (P10) barrels of in-place oil.
“This discovery now opens up an exciting Murta exploration play around the entire Dunoon Trough between the Harpoono oil field and Padulla,” Guglielmo said.
“It will have a material impact on Stuart’s business, it has validated the geological model and enhanced the prospectively of the Stuart-owned acreage in the Padulla area.”
Stuart holds a 100% interest in the lease. It expects that Padulla will be brought onto production via an extended production test, following completion and fracture stimulation before Christmas.
Gugliemo added that Padulla was a relatively inexpensive shallow well and said the field could be generating revenue by next month.
The company expects that crude oil reserves are between 30% and 40% of the oil in place. The field also holds significant development potential, with additional drilling planned for early next year, according to Stuart.
Gugliemo said he expected the well would produce between 100 and 200 barrels a day on pump. Oil is then likely to be trucked to the Moomba processing facility.
He added that the company had always highly rated this section of PEL113, which also hosts its Harpoono and Derilyn oil fields.
Following completion of Padulla-2, the drilling rig will move to the nearby Hiraji oil target to drill on another shallow structure on trend with Padulla.
It is Stuart’s sixth Cooper Basin oil discovery in its four-year history. So far this fiscal year, Stuart has drilled the following successful wells: Acrasia 4, an oil development well; Derilyn 2, a development well which has enhanced the size and production capability of the Derilyn oil field; and Worrior 3, which has just been completed as a further production well from Stuart’s Worrior Field, 30km north of Padulla.
Currently, Stuart is drilling the 100% owned Harry-1 oil and gas exploration well in the northern part of its Cooper Basin leases.
Guglielmo said the company had recently undertaken its largest ever exploration program.
“A significant revenue boost from high Australian dollar oil prices – between A$80 and A$100 a barrel in recent months - has allowed Stuart the financial flexibility to retain maximum equity in the best prospects in its exploration portfolio,” he said.
“This strategy positions us to accelerate our organic growth beyond what we thought possible just 12 months earlier.”
Stuart is forecast to produce between 800,000 and 900,000 barrels of oil this financial year, compared with 832,000 barrels last fiscal year.
