With its main focus on the Timor Sea, Norwest Energy NL has landed itself plumb in the best hydrocarbon address in the region.
The Perth-based hunter has clinched two solid farmin deals which will result in two holes being drilled in the area this year.
First cab off the rank will be the Puffin-5 well, located in Ashmore-Cartier Permit AC/P22, within which is contained the undeveloped Puffin oil field.
Norwest has farmed this out to Alberta Energy Corporation and is free carried with 20 per cent, while Alberta Enery retains 60 per cent and West Oil NL holds the balance.
Puffin 5 is due to spud at the end of May or early in June and will target oil accumulations from Puffin 1 and Puffin 2 wells. Drilled in 1974, Puffin 2 test-flowed 4608 barrels per day of 48 degree API oil from a late Maastrichtian sand formation.
This will be followed in August by the drilling of Coleraine-1 in the Zone of Cooperation 96-16 permit.
This project has been farmed out to a subsidiary of oil giant Phillips Petroleum Co, which operates an adjacent permit containing the Bayu-Undan gas/condensate field.
The permit is located about twelve kilometres from the producing Eland oil field and 15km from Bayu-Undan field.
Norwest managing director Ivan Burgess said the alliance with Phillips is seen as being beneficial to early development of a potential Coleraine discovery.
“Our confidence in Coleraine, and the other large prospects and leads in the Production Sharing Contract, has resulted in Norwest electing to pay a portion of the cost of the Coleraine-1 well, rather than being completely free carried, in order to retain a higher equity in the project,” he said.
