Senex Energy Ltd., Brisbane, has made an oil discovery on the western flank of South Australia’s Cooper basin, with its Marauder-1 exploration well, which flowed 655 b/d of oil on a drillstem test.
The Marauder-1 well was drilled in EX PEL 104 about 2 km north of Senex’s producing Growler and Spitfire oil fields.
Senex operates the field with 60% while Beach Energy Ltd. of Adelaide holds the remaining interest.
The well was identified from the Mollichuta 3D seismic survey and was designed to evaluate the production potential of the Birkhead formation, Senex said.
Marauder-1 encountered good oil shows within well-developed Birkhead sands and evaluation of logs indicate net pay of as much as 8.6 m within a 17½-m gross oil column.
A DST over the Birkhead formation, at 1,744.2-1,764.6 m, recovered 83.7 bbl of 48° API gravity oil. Oil flowed to surface after 79 min and continued to flow for the full 184-min flow period through a ½-in. choke. The flow rate was calculated with no indications of formation water throughout the DST.
The well will be cased and suspended and is expected to be placed on production in the coming months via a flowline to connect the well to existing systems on producing western flank fields.
