As a result Austral Pacific has two new significant shareholders, Alex Guidi of Vancouver, B.C. and Peter Loretto of Richmond, B.C who holds 12.29% and 13.46% respectively of Austral.

Austral also said testing operations had now been curtailed at Cheal-A3X; and the well is to be reconfigured for long-term production.

“A new wellhead will be installed, and the production tubing is to be fitted out for gas lift and jet pump production options, in order to optimise flow of the waxy Cheal crude oil. A rig will be mobilized onto the site to complete this work in a few weeks time, and will likely also drill a Cheal-4 well from the same site at that time,” said the company.

It said sufficient 4 1/2" pipeline to link Cheal to gas processing infrastructure would be shipped to New Zealand in the coming weeks.