Wellington-headquartered Austral yesterday afternoon said that all equipment had been mobilised to the well site and cleaning up the well had started almost a week ago in preparation for proper flow testing.
"The well should be shut in, either tonight or Tuesday for a pressure buildup of about two to three weeks," Austral chief executive Thom Jewell told PetroleumNews.net.
"Then we will open it up and have a look at how it flows; we will also do a gas analysis."
Austral, which operates Cardiff in mining licence PMP 38156 with a 44.9% interest, and integrated energy company Genesis Energy (55.1%) are testing the main producing zone within the Cardiff-2A well - the Eocene-aged K3E formation.
"This test is an important component of the ongoing field appraisal and development activities," Jewell said.
Economically viable gas flows have yet to be achieved from Cardiff-2A, three years after the sidetrack well was drilled and no recoverable reserves have been assigned, though gas in place could exceed 215 billion cubic feet, plus 12.8 million barrels of condensate.
Austral also said it had received the final tranche of $US3.9 million ($A4.17 million) in a private placement to raise $US15 million ($A16.05 million), primarily to accelerate development and appraisal of its Taranaki interests, principally the development of the nearby onshore Cheal oil field.
Cheal produces about 500 barrels per day, with gas that is excess to onsite requirements being exported to the nearby Waihapa production station now owned by Origin Energy.
Jewell said Austral, which operates Cheal with a 69.5% interest, was in final discussions with Canadian-listed junior TAG Oil (30.5%)regarding drilling another two or three wells in the Cheal field to increase the Cheal field reserve base and increase production flows, targeting normalised field production of up to 1500bpd.
