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Explorer strikes oil on its first peck
Taranaki Daily News Last updated 05:00 05/05/2010
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New petroleum exploration firm Kea Petroleum looks to have achieved immediate success, striking oil in its very first well.

The company has confirmed that its Wingrove-2 appraisal well east of Stratford has intersected a 6-metre-thick zone of oil-bearing sandstones.

Drillers have also encountered high levels of hydrocarbon gases below that zone, which is indicative of the presence of more crude oil.

Kea said it now intended completing the well as a producer, with production testing expected to commence within the next six months.

Kea chairman Ian Gowrie-Smith said his firm was delighted with the immediate success.

"In a very short time we have gone from an exploration company to one expecting to be in production within the next six months and we still have the rest of our drilling and exploration programme in front of us," he said.

Wingrove-2 was drilled from the site of an earlier well called Wingrove-1, which flow-tested oil at a rate of 50 barrels per day but which was never completed as a producer. The $3 million drilling project targeted shallow oil-bearing sand intervals, which Kea estimates to hold a million barrels of crude.

Low-cost production facilities are now planned for the site, with the oil to be transported by tanker either to the Waihapa production station five kilometres away, or to the tank farm overlooking Port Taranaki.

Kea Petroleum was incorporated in Britain late last year, and it is listed on the London Stock Exchange alternative investment market where in February it raised NZ$13m to fund exploration projects in Taranaki and Northland.

The Wingrove-2 drilling operations are expected to be completed this week, and the Ensign Rig-19 will then be moved north to drill an exploration well called Beluga-1, located west of the Waitara River near Tarata.