Apache Drills Duster in Carnarvon Basin

Sun Resources

Apache Energy reports that the Kilauea-1 well located in permit WAS-257-P in the Carnarvon Basin offshore Australia has reached a final total depth of 3,426 meters RT and logging operations are being carried out before the plugging and abandoning the well.

Contrary to expectations, no significant gas peaks were noted in logs of the sandstones encountered in the targeted Lower Jurassic to Triassic, North Rankin Formation and Mungaroo Formation, though both target formations showed evidence of migration of hydrocarbons into the trap by the presence of elevated gas readings with up to C4 components and fluorescence. Unexpectedly the North Rankin Formation was both poorly developed and thinner in Kilauea-1. This is in sharp contrast to Corvus-1, some 12 kilometers northeast of Kilauea-1 on the same regional structure in eastern adjacent permit WA-246-P, where 430 metres of gas bearing sandstones were encountered in the North Rankin Formation.

The shorter well final depth was due to the targeted North Rankin Formation and Mungaroo Formation being encountered shallower than the original prognosis (ie North Rankin by 131 meters at 3,139 metres RT and Mungaroo by 238.5 meters at 3,182 meters RT). This mismatch of actual to calculated depth could be due to a number of reasons (one being local seismic velocity variations affecting depth conversion to target formation tops) and will only be known once a full suite of electric logs and check shot data is interpreted as part of the prospect post mortem.

Notwithstanding the disappointing outcome of Kilauea, the prospect is only one of a number of significant, high impact volume prospects, delineated by 3D seismic coverage over the south-eastern portion of this sparsely explored permit area that remains to be evaluated by drilling in the next few years.

Participants in Kilauea 1 are: Apache as operator with 40.25%; Sun Resources with 7.505 and Kupfec Australia with 30% and Wandoo Petroleum with 22.25%.

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