Canning Basin drilling to commence in August

The Pancontinental Oil and Gas/Arc Energy joint venture is set to spud the....

  The Pancontinental Oil and Gas/Arc Energy joint venture is set to spud the first Canning Basin prospect, the Valentine-1 exploration well, in mid-August, according to Pancontinental General Manager, Matthew Battrick.Mr Battrick said the Valentine-1 well has a potential resource of 70 million barrels of oil or 380 BCF gas and that the spudding of this well will be immediately followed by the drilling of the second prospect Stokes Bay-1, which has 60 BCF gas and 5 million barrels of oil potential. According to Mr Battrick, the drilling of both wells will take approximately 50 days.If successful, these two prospects have the potential to add a combined seven to 10 million barrels of oil equivalent resources, net to Pancontinental. Pancontinental will be contributing 10.67 percent to the well costs to increase its participating interest from eight percent to 10 percent. The Canning Basin is one of the last under-explored areas in onshore Australia and has geological similarities with highly productive regions in Oman and the United States. The EP-104 permit is located adjacent to Derby and 150km northeast of Broome in Western Australia’s Kimberley Region.