At 6am South Australian time this morning, the well was at 868m and drilling ahead from a 12.25-inch surface hole.

Great Artesian said the partners planned to drill the surface hole to 950m before pulling out, running and setting surface casing.

The Tennyson-1 drilling will be fully funded by Beach.

“Tennyson-1 is the first of three wells and 145 square kilometres of 3D seismic to be funded by Beach in order to earn a 50% interest in the Beach farm-in block portion of PEL 106,” Great Artesian said.

“Tennyson-1 will test a faulted anticlinal structure located on the western rim of the Patchawarra Trough, about 3.5km northeast of the Udacha-1 gas discovery, 7km west of the Smegsy gas field and 6.5km north-northwest of the Middleton-1 gas and condensate discovery.”

The well’s primary objective is the Patchawarra Formation, but there is also some secondary potential in the Toolachee Formation, Epsilon Formation and the Tirrawarra Sandstone, with each of these geological units being commercially productive elsewhere in the Cooper Basin, according to Great Artesian.

“It is likely that hydrocarbon charge into the Tennyson structure will be of gas/condensate as it is surrounded by wet gas fields which on test flowed between 8 and 12 million cubic feet [MMcf] per day; Raven-1 flowed gas at 9MMcf, Middeton-1 at 11.8MMcf and Smegsy at 8MMcf/d,” the company said.

“Mapped as a relatively small structure, in-place reserves are estimated at between 2 and 15 billion cubic feet of gas, assuming a simple structural trapping model, although several discoveries in this area are known, or suspected, of having stratigraphic trap components involving hydrocarbon pools extending beyond the

mapped footprint of the hosting coincident structural trap.”

Tennyson-1 is now the ninth successive exploration well to be fully funded by farminees that Great Artesian has participated in since August 2005. Its spudding represents the first occasion since listing that Great Artesian is concurrently participating in the drilling of two exploration wells. The second well, Bellbird West-1 is an oil exploration well being drilled in ATP 552 in the Surat Basin.

Participants in Tennyson-1 are operator Beach and Great Artesian, both of which hold equal stakes.