A report from Wellington-based investment banker and broker McDouall Stuart said that "an upwards revision is likely" to the Australian Worldwide Exploration-operated project's latest 2P (proved and probable) estimate of 41.7 million barrels of oil.
This followed AWE managing director Bruce Wood telling journalists at a briefing at APPEA that the company expected to announce a reserves upgrade in the near future.
The field was originally thought to have recoverable reserves of about 27.9MMbl.
Shares in AWE closed at $3.78 yesterday, up 6.8% for the week and 3.8% for the month.
Field partners New Zealand Oil & Gas and Pan Pacific Petroleum also enjoyed boosts to their shares with NZO closing at $1.38, up 9.5% for the week and 16% for the month, while PPP closed at 28c, a 7.7% increase for the week and 19.1% for the month.
But not all was rosy on the Australian Stock Exchange, with a number of companies taking blows after reporting failures in their drilling programs.
Investors reacted badly to Cooper Energy's tale of woe in the Seruway PSC in northeast Sumatra, where its Gurame-1X appraisal failed to find commercial hydrocarbons.
The well was designed to further delineate the Gurame gas field, in which Cooper has a 22.5% stake. But data from both a RDT formation evaluation tool and a magnetic resonance tool confirmed the reservoirs in the primary target Boang sandstone were tight.
This was further compounded when the company said in its report for the third quarter ended March 31, 2008, that it would write off about $11 million associated with the planning and drilling of the earlier Kurnia-1 exploration well in the South Madura production-sharing contract in Indonesia.
Kurnia-1 had encountered 350m of gas shows during drilling but the lack of a sustained production test and subsequent interpretation of data obtained in the well indicated it had limited volume potential.
Shares in COE closed at 48.5c yesterday, down 11.8% for the week and 40.9% for the month.
Meanwhile, Bass Strait Oil got slugged after Apache Energy wrote off its Speke South-1 exploration well in offshore Gippsland as a dry hole.
Apache is acquiring a 60% stake in VIC/P42 from BSOC, which will retain a 20% stake in the permit. The remaining 20% is owned by Japan's Inpex.
BAS closed at 6.6c, down 16.5% for the week and down 45% for the month.
And New Zealand-focused junior explorer L&M Petroleum also suffered a setback after logging indicated its Fireball Creek-1 well in onshore Southland had a likely gas reserve of only about 3.5 billion cubic feet, too small to be developed on its own.
Shares in LMP closed at 8.5c yesterday, down 26.1% for the week and unchanged for the month.
