Operator Stuart today said DST-3, run over the interval 1448.5m and 1461m in the Murta Member, recovered 1.5 barrels of oil and 4.5bbl of mud from the well.

The Adelaide-based company said seven-inch production casing has been run and cemented and the company is now preparing to complete the well as a potential Murta oil well.

“The presence of oil in the most southerly well drilled to date by Stuart on the Dunoon Ridge further extends the prospectivity if the region,” it said.

“Stuart has mapped several new prospects in the area.”

Along with the Might & Power discovery, Stuart said Dunoon-2 is likely to be fracture stimulated in early 2007 and subsequently tied to the Harpoono facilities for production.

The well was being drilled on the Dunoon Ridge as a follow-up to the Harpoono oil discovery, 2.3km southwest, and to further test the oil-producing trend confirmed by more recent discoveries at Revenue, Rimfire and Might & Power.

Dunoon-2 is also located 500m northwest of Dunoon-1, which was drilled in 1984 by Delhi Petroleum and exhibited oil shows in the Murta Formation and McKinlay Member.

Stuart has previously said the Dunoon-2 structure has the potential to contain 720,000bbl of oil in both these formations.

Secondary potential also exists in the Hutton and Birkhead formations.

Dunoon-2 completes the joint venture’s 2006 drilling program and Stuart said it is now integrating results achieved and assembling the 2007 drilling program.

Interests in Dunoon-2 and PEL 113 are Stuart (66.7%) and Beach (33.3%).