The company said a deeper secondary reservoir also flowed 247bopd through a 28/64-inch choke. Neither zone produced water on test.
“This is an encouraging result from our initial drilling program in Vietnam,” Santos managing director John Ellice-Flint said.
“We are also continuing to assess other opportunities to increase our exploration exposure in this country.”
Work will now start on the preparation of a resource assessment and reservoir evaluation report, he said.
Once the well is successfully completed, the rig will move to drill well 12E-CS-1X on the nearby Blackbird prospect. Santos said this well would explore a large tilted fault block updip of a previous well that encountered very good oil shows.
Just before Santos started drilling the southern fault block, appraisal work was undertaken on the northern section with the Dua-4X and Dua-4X ST1 wells. These were step-out wells from the 1974 Dua-1X discovery well, which flowed 1500bopd from the main reservoir. Wireline testing of both Dua-4X and Dua-4X ST1 recovered oil samples and pressure data.
Participants and their interests in Dua-5X and Block 12E are now Premier Oil (operator with a 37.5% stale), Santos (37.5%) and Delek Energy (25%).
