The well was deemed to have encountered an uneconomic gas resource, after flowing just 37,000 cubic feet of gas per day on a second drill stem test over the interval 2695-2706m.

Of the interpreted gas saturated sandstones penetrated by Tennyson-1, this interval was considered to have the best potential. Its failure to record a significant gas flow was blamed on tight formation conditions.

Operator Beach Petroleum determined that better quality reservoirs located higher up in the Patchawarra Formation were interpreted to be non-hydrocarbon bearing and water-wet.

But Great Artesian said the result had not diminished the overall prospectivity of the Southwest Patchawarra Trough within the western portion of the permit, while also reiterating that exploration success in PEL 106 was still “far above” the Cooper Basin average.

Tennyson-1, which reached a total depth of 2860m, is located on a separate structure to the recent Middleton-1 and Udacha-1 well discoveries, where production testing is expected to start later this month and last about two weeks.

Looking ahead, Beach Petroleum, also operator of the PPL 212 and PEL 107 joint ventures, has confirmed it will use the Century Rig-3 to undertake a continuous drilling program between mid-October and the end of January, focusing on oil targets across the southern margin of the Patchawarra Trough.

At this stage, the campaign is expected to start with the Kiana-2 appraisal well, followed by exploration wells Keeley-1, Talia-1, Appadare-1 and potentially Cabbots-1.

A final decision of whether this last well is drilled depends on results from a small seismic survey completed over the Cabbots Prospect.

Deterministic probability estimates of the potential reserves addressed by each of the oil exploration wells range between 800,000 and 2.3 million barrels of recoverable oil reserves.