“Issues relating to the reading and analysis of pre-frac seismic monitoring system data have resulted in the delay and all services will now need to be rescheduled,” the Perth-based company said.

The North Belridge oil field has estimated potential P50 reserves of 60 million barrels of recoverable oil and 40 billion cubic feet of gas.

The company has said private US operator Texas Crude Energy (TCE) estimates the potential recoverable reserves from the development well to be about 600,000bbl of oil.

The initial production rate from NB 26-2H is believed to be over 500 barrels of oil per day.

Aurora said TCE had also informed it that the land acquisition programs for its Ipanema and Longhorn projects, onshore Texas are progressing well.

Some 5400 acres (2185.3 hectares) have been secured to date. A further 3800 acres are verbally committed to lease and 8000 acres subject to negotiation, it said.

“The initial objective of these joint ventures is directed at securing additional onshore Texas leasehold acreage within specific regions identified by TCE as prospective,” Aurora said.

“The targeted areas of interest have been identified based on considerable analysis including 2D seismic and existing well data.”

TCE has spent more than 12 years collating and analysing data to this end and from this work has been able to identify several new oil and gas field discoveries, it said.