London-based Kea Petroleum has made its second potentially commercial oil strike in the onshore Taranaki Mt Messenger reservoir sands, and will begin flow-testing shortly.
The Puka-1 well, east of Stratford, found a 40 metre interval at 1400 metres depth, indicating "a minimum of 4.5 metres of moveable hydrocarbons in good reservoir quality sands", which it expects will be a "light oil, somewhat gassier towards the top of the interval."
Kea found uncommercial quantities of oil in its Wingrove-2 well last year, which was abandoned, and is due to drill the Mauku-1 well in a joint venture with methanol producer Methanex this year.
On Puka-1, the company said "both the depth at which these sands were encountered, and their extent, are in line with pre drill expectations, and at this stage the company has not altered its original estimate of gross recoverable resource of one million barrels with a potential upside of up to three million barrels."
The timing of initial flow testing will be determined by the availability of equipment.
