Presenting at the RIU Good Oil Conference in Fremantle last week the company's business development manager Craig Gumley said its first onshore well looked extremely promising in terms of the data offered up.
While it will be years before Finder can prove the commercial potential of the Goldwyer shale, the unconventional potential is just a small part of the privately-owned company's portfolio of more than 15 permits along the North West Shelf.
The company is hoping to maintain its track record for strong technical work leading to discoveries three more wells planned over the next 12-18 months, including the Roc-1 well in the Bedout Sub-basin to follow up the play-opening Phoenix South-1 oil discovery planned to build on the four wells drilled to date, with three discoveries and Theia-1 to still be confirmed.
Quadrant and JX Nippon Oil and Gas have committed to fund Roc-1, which will test a structure about 1.5 times the size of Phoenix South in an area where reservoir model and a shallower target depth both suggests there is the potential for up to 680 million barrels of oil in place.
Success there would almost certainly confirm the new Triassic oil play in the Bedout Sub-basin of the Roebuck Basin, and would make it more likely that the strong Bandy oil prospect, which is mapped on the Zeester 3D seismic as covering up to 263sq.km, would be drilled.
Bandy has a potential for up to 750MMbbl OIP across the Legendre, North Rankin equivalent and Upper Keraudren, and is potentially sourced by both Jurassic and Triassic rocks.
Finder has also started talking about its shallow water blocks EP 483 & TP/25 (100%) near Barrow Island.
The company's year one commitment to reprocess some 4056km of 2D seismic data and interpretation has delivered more than 20 prospects and leads over five play levels, enhancing the Birdrong Sandstone and opening up new deeper plays.
In May it initiated a 150sq.km pre-stack depth migration 3D seismic program to address prospect sizes, with an initial focus on the deeper water areas, those above 13, where it has defined a Cretaceous pinch-out play and the deeper Triassic Eagle Mungaroo lead.
The PSDM data is due for delivery early next year.
Major targets defined so far include the Eagle lead, which has the potential for up to 433MMbbl or 780 billion cubic feet of gas (P10), or the West Santo pinch-out play with mapped potential for 260MMbbl.
There are a number of immediately adjacent targets ranging from 7.4MMbbl at Santo South-West to 25MMbbl at Anchor Lowside.
Finder is also particularly excited about WA-500-P in the deeper waters of the Rankin Trend, where it has accelerated its work program by two years with 210 km long offset 2D shot in July based on the PSDM work conducted over the 1200sq.km Willem 3D data.
While there are several play levels across the Triassic, Jurassic and Cretaceous strata, the company is focusing in the Urania North lead, which appears to share similarities with the 2000's Urania-1 discovery in the Greater Gorgon area, and Woodside's Pluto-4 and Pyxis-1 wells.
In terms of drilling, Quadrant and Finder plan to spud the Hyde-1 well in WA-418-P, testing a 223MMbbl Angel/Legendre target before the end of 2016, while with Sasol and Shell it is planning to test the massive Cronus-1 well within AC/P52.
Hyde is a low-risk permit with a potential 7.8Tcf GIP and 134MMbbl of condensate.
