Wellington-based Austral yesterday afternoon said the $US3.64 million ($A4.05 million) net loss contributed to an overall loss for the nine months of 2007 of $US9.10 million ($A10.15 million).

The latest total quarterly production from Cheal was 41,611 barrels of oil, or an average of about 452 barrels per day.

Production is expected to rise significantly late next month to about 700bpd when three additional production wells at the Cheal B wellsite are tied into the Cheal A site’s facilities and brought online.

Drilling two new wells at the A site in the first quarter of 2008 is also expected to further increase total production, Austral said.

The company operates Cheal with a 69.5% interest, while Canadian-listed junior TAG Oil holds a 30.5% stake.

Austral also said field operations at the nearby Cardiff gas-condensate field, which started in August, are likely to be finished early next year.

A workover of the Cardiff-2A well has started and the upper McKee Formation has been isolated in preparation for flow-testing the primary zone, the Eocene-aged K3E interval. This testing is expected to start in late December-early January.

The Cardiff partners are operator Austral (44.9%) and Genesis (55.1%).

No economically recoverable reserves have officially been assigned to Cardiff, but Canadian independent consultants Sproule International estimated "probabilistic" gas in place of more than 215 billion cubic feet plus 12.8 million barrels of condensate.

In the nearby PMP 38153 licence, Austral plans to drill a Kahili appraisal well during the first 2008 quarter.

The company said the well would target the crest of the Kahili structure about 100m higher than and to the northeast of the Kahili 1A-B well that has been shut in since November 2004.

Meanwhile, in Papua New Guinea, Austral said the Ministry of Petroleum and Energy had granted a five-year extension to the Petroleum Retention Licence 4 (which took effect from August 2005) and that a 43km 2D infill seismic survey should start later this month.

Earlier this year the PRL 4 joint venture entered into a feasibility study with PNG Sustainable Energy Limited (PNG SEL) to study options for commercialising the Stanley gas discovery. Austral holds a 28.9% interest in and operates PRL 4, along with InterOil and Horizon Oil.

Austral also said the PPL 235 joint venture continued to assess opportunities to monetise the Douglas gas discovery. Operator British firm Rift Oil (65% equity) and Austral (35%), together with Alcan South Pacific Pty, are still exploring the possibility of exporting Douglas gas to the Gove Refinery in the Northern Territory.