Melbourne-headquartered Austin said that following more thorough wireline log analysis of the PEL 73 Yorketown Prospect well, 96 kilometres west of Adelaide, it believed further drilling was possible.

The company said log analysis showed an 8m-thick petrophysical hydrocarbon show – identified by third-party petrophysicist Charles Winston of Houston – from 691m-699m. Analysis indicated a 50% chance there were producible hydrocarbons in the zone.

Austin said this hydrocarbon show was important as it indicated hydrocarbons had been generated in the basin and were still trapped in the area. “Previous exploration data from the Stansbury Basin did not indicate this.”

The company said the prospect was large and could be a “significant energy resource”.

Austin would evaluate the licence over the coming months to determine possible exploration opportunities that included further geologic and geochemical work, and running new seismic and drilling addition test wells.

“Based on this log analysis we are now of the firm belief that a hydrocarbon system capable of trapping hydrocarbons is no longer in question for the Stansbury Basin and we look forward to further hydrocarbon exploration on PEL 73,” said Austin managing director David Schuette.

Austin drilled the initial test well in the Yorketown prospect in early 2007 and a detailed analysis has been under way since drilling stopped last March.

The Yorketown prospect is 105sq.km in area, located onshore near the southern tip of Yorke Peninsula. It is estimated to have large potential in a dolomitised limestone reservoir with good porosity.

The PEL 73 partners are operator DMS Exploration (with a 40% interest), Austin Exploration (16.666%), PEL 73 Investment Partners (PIP) (25%), a private investor (16.667%), and Flex Energy (1.667%).