The two Adelaide-headquartered companies said this morning that wireline logs at Revenue-1 indicated about two metres of oil pay in the McKinlay formation.

Although downhole conditions prevented any drill stem tests from being run, Stuart was casing the well pending its completion as an oil producer.

Stuart managing director Tino Guglielmo said testing and further evaluation of oil shows in the Murta and Birkhead formations would be conducted after completing the well.

The well had earlier reached its planned total depth of 1542m. Drilling was stopped at 1546m.

The Revenue well was a follow-up to the oil discovery made by Harpoono-1 in May 2004 and was 1.4km southeast of Harpoono-1 in the northeast area of the Dunoon Ridge.

Stuart Petroleum had previously said the Revenue structure was thought to be in an ideal location to receive any hydrocarbons that had migrated north-to-south through the Harpoono field.

Pre-drill estimates of the Revenue structure had mean potential oil in place of 1.4 million barrels in the Murta Formation and the McKinlay Member, in which oil had been discovered at Harpoono.

Last year’s Harpoono 3D seismic survey was used to map the Revenue structure as well as the Harpoono oil discovery.

Participants in the Revenue-1 well are operator Stuart Petroleum (66.7%) and Beach Petroleum (33.3%).