Santos Group and its partners made a new-pool oil discovery last month on Petroleum Prospecting License 8 in the South Australian portion of the Cooper-Eromanga basins. The discovery is the group's third on the Moomba structure.
The partners drilled the Moomba 104 exploration well to 2,161 m TD, where it cut a 9-m oil column in Jurassic Hutton sandstone.
The well is about 6 km south of the Moomba gas processing plant (see map).
Santos expects the zone will be capable of flowing 2,000-3,000 b/d of oil, based on comparable producing zones in the Cooper basin. Santos will case and suspend the well for future production, which is expected to start in about 3 months.
The partners intend to follow up with further drilling based on a 3D survey acquired in 1997. They anticipate additional potential within the Moomba field for similar oil accumulations in the zone.
PPL 8 interest holders are: operator Santos, 59.75%; Delhi Petroleum Pty. Ltd., 20.21%; Boral Energy Resources Ltd., 13.19%; Novus Australia Re- sources NL, 4.75%; and OMV Group, 2.1%.
