A Woodside spokesman described the latest find as encouraging and said, “It doesn’t change our view that the field has more than 3 trillion cubic feet of gas”.
The find confirmed the southern extremity of the field and Pluto-1 was probably in the middle of the field, he told EnergyReview.net.
Pluto-2 is about 8.5 kilometres south of the Pluto-1 gas discovery in the outer offshore Carnarvon Basin, about 90 kilometres south-west of the Goodwyn platform.
Both wells are in Woodside’s wholly-owned WA-350-P permit area.
Until the first Pluto find, Woodside had been looking forward to its fifth train. With Pluto thoughts have turned to a sixth train.
Pluto is 15km from ChevronTexaco's 2 trillion cubic feet Wheatstone discovery and 110km south-west of the North Rankin production platform. Both companies are partners in the North West Shelf venture and their combined discoveries could provide enough gas to feed a four to five million tonnes per year LNG train over 20 years.
Woodside chief Don Voelte has indicated that Woodside and Chevron were discussing possible development strategies.
Pluto-2 well is now being prepared for sidetrack to acquire core samples.
Woodside told EnergyReview.net that a decision about any further appraisal drilling would be made by the end of the calendar year.
