All the excitement is with Matuku 1 drill at the moment, however...

All the excitement is with Matuku 1 drill at the moment, however some may be interested in some final numbers of the Winchester Drill.

As we all know the prospect had been deemed uneconomic – this due to the gas bearing sands being found in the upper part of the structure, ie coming in higher what they thought – think of it as the top layers of a cone shape structure and thus very small areas and volumes and latest numbers 58m of pay for low mid and high case was roughly 20, 40, 60 BCF.
Sources close to Santos suggest work is ongoing and are confident now that they have detailed data of the penetrated zones that there is a good chance of gas bearing sands in the unpenetrated zones below what was tested. It was unfortunate that with quite a fair few problems and delays blew out the budget close to 130 mil for the drill I believe so the decision was made to pull up stumps, If other majors were involved as a partner then they may have drilled deeper. Actually other Majors didn’t think Santos could actually drill the prospect due to the tricky overpressure zones - Kudos to them though – what a gutsy drill. So the future’s not over for Winchester as I see the possibility of another major farm in and testing the deeper sands unit….and because of the deeper layers in the cone structure it will mean many times more area and hence volumes. Time will tell thought. OXX will have to farm down though – however a little less of a lot is a lot better than a quarter of nothing.

In exploration you really want to be a half glass full type of person and have plenty of patience.
So to all involved and invested – Good luck with Matuku over the next few months – it sure looks a beauty!