The initial 5km survey is taking place over the Christchurch-headquartered company’s Sharpridge Creek prospect in the Waiau Basin licence PEP 38226 in western Southland.
L&M Petroleum managing director John Bay said he expected the survey would be completed within a week.
The survey was designed to provide the location for Eastern Bush-1, a follow-up well to Sharpridge Creek-1 that last June recovered small quantities of gas and traces of oil, confirming the existence of an active petroleum system in the Waiau Basin.
Immediately afterwards, L&M aims to start a two-week, 23km onshore seismic survey over the Dean prospect in the same permit. This is designed to provide the location for the Dean-1 well scheduled to be drilled in the second quarter of this year.
Eastern Bush-1, L&M’s second Beaumont Formation well after Sharpridge Creek-1, is scheduled to spud in late March. It is targeting best estimate potential resources of up to 253 million barrels of oil in place in the Eocene-aged Beaumont sandstones.
Site preparations are due to start in early February and drilling plans are well advanced, with drilling contractors and other wellsite service providers identified and long-lead equipment and materials requirements ordered.
Last month, L&M and Canadian independent TAG Oil said they were cooperating to cut rig costs for their multi-well South Island exploration programs, starting with TAG’s wildcat Kate-1 well that should spud later this month, followed by Eastern Bush-1.
