Tests finish on oil well

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Swift Energy has yet to decide whether to develop its Taranaki wildcat oil discovery. Thousands of barrels of black sludge flowed from the well this week.

United States-based Swift Energy finished testing its Rimu-A1 wildcat well in the onshore Taranaki Basin with at least 2115 barrels of oil and 6 million cubic feet of natural gas estimated to be flowing from the discovery each day.

Donald Morgan, president of Swift Energy New Zealand, said: "That's a really good well. Looking at what it has been producing, it's well above average."

Most New Zealand oil wells produce between 500 and 2500 barrels of oil every day, although some have produced more than 10,000 a day.

Mr Morgan said the company plans to carry out further seismic and production testing during the next two months, costing up to $5 million.

A decision on its production viability would be made later this year.

A market analyst said Swift might decide against producing from Rimu-A1 because of its depth and high development costs.

Initial drilling results were often unreliable, too.