Santos makes oil find off W. Australia

May 25, 2011
Santos Ltd., Adelaide, made an oil discovery with its Finucane South-1A wildcat in permit WA-191-P in the Carnarvon basin off Western Australia.

Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent

MELBOURNE, May 25 -- Santos Ltd., Adelaide, made an oil discovery with its Finucane South-1A wildcat in permit WA-191-P in the Carnarvon basin off Western Australia.

Wireline logs have confirmed 18.5 m of net oil pay in high quality sands within the late Jurassic Angel formation.

The find is 15 km east of the company’s Mutineer-Exeter oil development facility and has potential to exceed the predrill reserve estimate of 8 million bbl.

The well also lies 2 km south-southwest of the 1987 Finucane-1 well that intersected oil shows at the top of the Angel formation despite having been drilled off structure.

Santos says Finucane South-1A was drilled using Stena Drilling’s Stena Clyde semisubmersible rig to identify potential additional resources to supplement those in the adjacent Fletcher field discovered in late 2007.

Both Finucane South and Fletcher could be developed via a tie-back to the Mutineer-Exeter production facilities.

Operator Santos holds 33.4% interest in WA-191-P. Other partners include Kufpec Australia 33.4%, Nippon Oil 25%, and Tap Oil Ltd. 8.2%.