“The plant is scheduled for fulltime production start-up by mid-September,” TAG said.

“Storage and marketing concerns previously reported have now been addressed and a staged facility start-up is scheduled to begin in late August.

Initial oil production is forecast to ramp up from 350 to 400 barrels per day to 800bpd once the production facility is fully operational. Further scheduled development drilling from the A-Site in the first quarter of 2008 is anticipated to increase production to between 1400 and 1500bpd, TAG said.

The Cheal partners are operator Austal Pacific Energy (69.5%) and TAG Oil (30.5%).