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No good oil for AWE

The Tuatara-1 wildcat well will be plugged and abandoned, operator AWE confirmed today.AWE announced to ASX that drilling of up to 1,911 metres had revealed no zones of economic potential, though minor oil shows were discovered between 1,790-1,850 metres.

Nina Fowler
Mon, 16 Aug 2010

The Tuatara-1 wildcat well will be plugged and abandoned, operator AWE confirmed today.

AWE announced to ASX that drilling of up to 1,911 metres had revealed no zones of economic potential, though minor oil shows were discovered between 1,790-1,850 metres.

Tuatara-1, located in PEP 38524 in the southern part of the offshore Taranaki Basin, was due to be drilled to a depth of 2000 metres.

It had targeted up to 100 million barrels of potential oil reserves.

AWE's Tuatara-1 joint venture partners are Australian company Carnarvon, Australian-headquartered ROC Oil and British-listed KEA Petroleum at 10%, 15% and 10% respectively.

Carnavon said in July, after it agreed to farm-in to the venture, that it believed Tuatara had an estimated chance of success of 25%.

The Tuatara-1 disappointment is one of several in the area in recent months.

Too risky for Widespread

Meanwhile, off the West Coast, one risky permit will soon be back up for grabs.

Widespread Energy announced to NZX today that it will surrender its PEP 50439 permit following an independent review of previous technical work.

The results presented "too high a risk to commit to further obligations under the work programme," Widespread director Chris Castle said in a statement.

Widespread Energy, well-known for its willingness to back high-risk and embryonic energy sector projects, currently holds a permit for a Chatham Rise rock phosphate prospect potentially worth $6.7 billion.

Nina Fowler
Mon, 16 Aug 2010
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No good oil for AWE
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