Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, Mar. 17 -- Woodside Petroleum and Apache Energy have had separate successes with natural gas discoveries off Western Australia.
Woodside announced a natural gas discovery in its Martin-1 wildcat in its wholly owned permit WA-404-P in the Carnarvon basin.
Wireline logs confirmed the well had intersected 100 m of gross pay within the Triassic-age target reservoir following the recovery of gas samples and the establishment of a gas pressure gradient.
Martin-1 lies within 14 km of the company’s earlier gas discoveries at Martell-1, Noblige-1, Larsen-1, Larsen Deep-1 and Remy-1, all of which add to Woodside’s total gas reserves earmarked to support expansion of the Pluto LNG project.
Meanwhile, in permit WA-290-P, Apache continues to find gas zones in its already successful Zola-1 wildcat.
The company says the well has now intersected a total of 100 m thickness of gas-bearing sands. The resource could total 1-2 tcf of gas.
The gas is contained in three thick Mungaroo formation channel sands, but it is too early to determine whether these are discreet individual sands or one single accumulation.
Zola prospect is a tilted horst block on trend with the Gorgon gas field.
Apache, operator, holds 30.25% interest in WA-290-P Partners include OMV AG 20%, Santos Ltd. 24.75%, Nippon Oil Exploration 15%, and Tap Oil Ltd. 10%.
159458497 Aleksei Zakirov | Dreamstime.
Photo from Esso SAF.
