“The well will be brought on production following completion of the short additional pipeline required to add this well in to existing field infrastructure,” said Jon Stewart, managing director of Aurora Oil & Gas, one of the three Australian partners involved in the project.

“It’s expected that commercial production from this well will commence in approximately four weeks.”

After a period of up to 100 days of production the well will probably be fracture stimulated, Stewarrt said.

“Previous fracture stimulation of wells at Flour Bluff has on average increased production by an average of two times,” he said.

Current reserve estimates for Flour Bluff (the west side of the project) are about 104 bcf. The deeper K sands in this part of the field, from which good gas shows were encountered during drilling, have proven to be water wet, so no additional reserves can be attributed to these zones.

The second well in the three well program, EFB D-24, is currently drilling through the target zone and has encountered several encouraging gas shows, Stewart said.

The operator is currently preparing to run wireline logs to assess these shows ahead of setting casing to protect any pay zones. The targetted reserves for this well and the third well total 67bcf.

The three Australian partners – Sun Resources, Victoria Petroleum and Aurora Oil & Gas – hold 12.5% in the western part of the field and have now acquired an additional 4.1666% working interest (2.9166% net revenue interest) in the East Flour Bluff Gas Field. This increases each partner's total working interest to 16.666% and net revenue interest to 11.666%.