Pan Pacific Petroleum has shut down its latest search for oil in the Timor Sea, with the abandonment of its second well in the area.
After initially predicting it could bring in almost 200 million barrels of oil from its Timor Sea operation, the Austra
Pan Pacific Petroleum has shut down its latest search for oil in the Timor Sea, with the abandonment of its second well in the area.
After initially predicting it could bring in almost 200 million barrels of oil from its Timor Sea operation, the Australasian company announced today it will plug and abandon the Lolotoe-1 well in the area, after failing to find any commercial hydrocarbon zones.
The drilling programme in the area was launched last year, with Oilex - its operator in the area - drilling on two sites with prospective oil resources of 195 million barrels.
The Lore-1 well was spudded in November, but plugged and abandoned the next month.
It then moved on to the Lolotoe prospect, targeting oil resources of about 90 million barrels, but this also failed to deliver the required results.
When it first launched the drilling programme, the company said the area – known as JPDA 06-103 - was a “highly prospective offshore oil exploration block” near to a number of producing fields.
It has not completely given up on the area, saying today the data from the abandoned well will be integrated into existing studies to assess the implications on the regional prospectivity of the southern part of the contract area.
It said it will then decide on locations for further wells planned to be drilled later in 2010 to evaluate the remaining potential in the contract area.
Pan Pacific said there were still more than 20 further prospects in the JPDA 06-103 contract area with the potential to host significant oil reserves.
The Songa Mercur rig – which was contracted to drill the wells - will be demobilised to Singapore at the completion of well operations.
A trading halt placed on Pan Pacific Petroleum shares has now been lifted.
New Zealand Oil & Gas owns a 15% stake in the company, while Pan Pacific have a 10% equity in the Tui oilfields.
