“The significance of these gas readings will be determined once the well has reached total depth and wireline logging has been completed,” Arc said.

As of yesterday morning, the well was at 2340m, drilling ahead towards at planned total depth of 3407m. The top of the primary objective, which lies in the Late Devonian-aged Virgin Hills Formation, is interpreted to be at 3222m.

Valentine-1 is about 20km north of Derby in northwest Western Australia’s Kimberley region. The well, which spudded on August 12, is expected to take 25 days to drill.

The Valentine prospect is a large lowside fault closure that is mapped in both the EP104 and R1 permits and extends over an area of some 66 square kilometres along the Pinnacle fault system.

Following the drilling of Valentine-1, the R1/EP104 joint venture plans to drill the Stokes Bay-1 well by sidetracking from the Valentine 1 wellbore.

Stokes Bay-1 is planned as a test of the extent and reservoir development of the gas accumulation intersected by the Point Torment-1 well drilled in 1992. It will be drilled as a deviated well with a total depth of about 2500 metres.

Point Torment-1 was drilled in 1992 and subsequently flowed gas at a rate of up to 4.3 million cubic feet of gas per day from the Carboniferous aged Anderson Formation sandstones. Subsequent tests of these sands produced ambiguous information on potential volumes and reservoir quality and Stokes Bay-1 well is designed to provide a definitive test of the reservoir quality and extent of the accumulation.

The R1/EP104 joint venture comprises Arc Energy (operator) 38.95%, Empire Oil and Gas 14.8%, Emerald Oil & Gas 12.75%, Pancontinental Oil & Gas NL 10%, Phoenix Resources 10%, First Australian Resources 8% and Indigo Oil 5.5%.