The Perth-based company will operate the entire drilling program, other than two offshore wells planned for Mauritania.

“Not for the first time, the look-ahead exploration-appraisal drilling programme for ROC includes some pretty interesting wells,” managing director John Doran said.

“As a result, by mid 2008, the company will have a much better idea of the true potential of some of its currently key exploration-appraisal areas.”

Doran added that Roc was producing 13,000 barrels of oil per day.

As operator of WA-286-P, Roc said yesterday that it had contracted the Premium Wilcraft jack-up rig to drill two exploration-appraisal wells in the offshore northern Perth Basin starting in January.

One well will appraise the Frankland gas discovery, while the other will target the potential of the area around the Dunsborough oil discovery by drilling the nearby Lilac Prospect.

This follows a drilling campaign led by Roc Oil in the region back in June, which turned up some ambiguous results.

Frankland-1 was plugged and abandoned as a gas discovery, after failing to encounter commercial quantities of oil.

Likewise, Dunsborough-1 was hailed as a new oil and gas field discovery, but Roc said it needed further appraisal to determine its significance.

Interests in WA-286-P are Roc (37.5%), AWE Oil (27.5%), Wandoo (24%), Arc (6%) and CIECO Exploration and Production (5%).

In other company news, Roc said it would participate in a deepwater drilling campaign in Mauritania starting at the end of January and ending in mid 2008.

The first well, Khop-1, will test a structure in Block C6, in which Roc has a 5% stake.

Subsequent drilling includes an exploration-appraisal well on the Banda gas field, in PSC B (Roc-3.693%), and several infill development wells in the Chinguetti oil field (Roc- 3.25%).

Elsewhere in Africa, Roc has this month started drilling the Milho-1 exploration well onshore Angola using the Simmons 80 rig.

The well, the first in the current programme to specifically target a pre-salt structure, is expected to reach total depth by the end of January.

Immediately after Milho-1, Roc expects to drill three other back-to-back exploration wells, all targeting pre-salt structures, to extend the continuous drilling programme into mid-2008

“Subject to a review of the results of the laboratory analyses of the heavy oil recovered from the Massambala-1 core samples, the joint venture plans to appraise that discovery during 2008,” the company said.

In China, Roc has contracted the Premium Murmanskaya jack-up rig to drill four exploration-appraisal wells at its Beibu Gulf project, offshore China.

The first two wells will test the Wei 6-12-West and Wei 6-12-East structural-stratigraphic prospects, 2.5 km and 1.7 km respectively, from the 2006 Wei 6-12-South oil discovery.