Kea Finds Oil at Puka-2

New Zealand-focused Kea Petroleum reported Thursday that it has made an oil discovery in a new sand reservoir at its Puka-2 well in the lower Mount Messenger "Mako" sands in the Taranaki Basin.

Puka-2 intersected 15 feet of sand with a vertical thickness of approximately 11 feet in the lower Mount Messenger near 5,575 feet of measured depth.

Kea said that preliminary petrophysical log analysis indicates that this sand has an average oil saturation of 64 percent, with porosity of 25.6 percent and MDT permeabilities in the order of 75 to 100 millidarcies. The firm added that these porosity and permeability values are among the highest recorded in the Mount Messenger reservoirs to date.

Kea is now going to case the well and then test as soon as possible thereafter, it said, on account of there being no indication of free gas or water within the sand package.

Kea Chairman Ian Gowrie-Smith commented in a statement:

"We are delighted to have again struck oil at Puka. This new discovery, with its high quality sands, is likely to have much better flow rates than Puka 1. Kea can now look forward with confidence to an early and substantial cash flow."

In November, Kea raised $11.3 million in a placing of shares with investors in order to help fund two further wells near its Puka-1 onshore well, as well as complete around 19 square miles of 3D seismic data acquisition in the area.