Solid oil sales for Triangle ahead of gas exploration drive

Triangle Energy Global has capped off a solid quarter, raking in $6.54 million courtesy of oil sales associated with its Cliff Head joint venture (JV) partnership with Pilot Energy.

The proceeds are earmarked for high-impact exploration drilling near Geraldton in Western Australia’s Mid West region, with the company set to kick off its hunt for hydrocarbons at its Booth-1 well in the prospective Perth Basin by July.

Management says its production, export and sales route continues to run much like a well-oiled machine. Once the oil is tapped from the Cliff Head A platform, it is stored at the onshore Arrowsmith facility, trucked to Geraldton and loaded onto its charted tanker – the AB Paloma – with 26,000 barrels at a time to reach its 52,000-barrel capacity. The tanker then departs to a refinery buyer in Asia for a spot market sale.

The Cliff Head tie-up with Pilot is split 79/21 in the former’s favour. However, that dynamic is set to change. A realignment of the JV will see Triangle fully divest its interest and exit the Cliff Head JV, with Pilot taking the helm.

When the final regulatory approval comes through for carbon capture and storage (CCS) at the Cliff Head reservoir, Pilot will hand over $7.5 million and transition the well from oil production to become the first CCS development operation in WA’s Mid West.

Until then, Triangle’s managing director Conrad Todd says it is “business as usual” after the JV duo delivered its seventh shipment to a buyer in Asia earlier this month. Triangle is set to bank the cool $6.54 million owing to its majority share in the partnership.

The Booth-1 well is expected to cost Triangle and JV partners New Zealand Oil & Gas and Strike Energy less than $1.5 million and is the first well in the drilling program to use new 3D seismic acquired in 2022. The Becos-1 well will then follow in the September quarter as the search for hydrocarbons intensifies in the region.

Triangle is the operator of Permit L7, which hosts the Booth prospect, and EP437, which hosts Becos. It holds a 50 per cent interest, while its partners each have a 25 per cent share.

The company says it has now secured the Ventia 106 rig to drill Booth-1. The total depth of the well is planned to be 2900m.

The best technical gross prospective resource estimate for the Booth prospect is 279 billion cubic feet (Bcf), with a high side of 540Bcf and a low side of 113Bcf. The prospect also offers the potential for gas within the Kingia-High Cliff reservoirs and possibly another 19Bcf of gas, or 8.5 million barrels (MMbbls) of oil, in the overlying Dongara sandstone.

Booth-1 will also pass through the Cattamarra reservoirs that contain a best-estimate prospective resource of 2.7MMbbls of oil, with another 3.2MMbbls tied up in the Booth Footwall reservoir section adding to the prospectivity of the ground that sits just 50km east of the coastal WA town of Dongara.

Triangle is poised to unlock the potential of its highly-prospective onshore Perth Basin permits, with a bulging purse courtesy of oil sales from its Cliff Head platform and its impending sale. A growing pipeline of opportunities in the North Sea and off the coast of Asia is no doubt also now beckoning to feel the bite of the drill bit.

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