Oil and gas explorer and producer Beach Petroleum (BPT) said today its Parsons-2 well in South Australia is to be capped as a producer and connected to pipeline infrastructure for first commercial oil flows from May this year.
The South Australia-based explorer and producer said that this shows that the region still holds great potential as Australia’s premier onshore petroleum province.
“Beach is demonstrating the considerable upside yet remaining in the Cooper Basin – Australia’s most prolific onshore petroleum production region – particularly as both the Parsons and Callawonga fields have exhibited high initial flow rates,” Beach Petroleum managing director Reg Nelson said.
“It’s significant that the Parsons and Callawonga fields are the furthest west commercial discoveries to date by any explorer in the Cooper Basin – and the area remains very underexplored,” he said.
The company expects this addition will significantly boost its oil production from the area – ‘particularly now that the new 5000 barrels of oil per day Callawonga pipeline to Moomba has been completed,” Mr Nelson said.
Beach Petroluem holds reserves at Cooper Basin, Gippsland Basin and Surat Basin and has interests in tenements across Australia as well as New Zealand and Papua New Guinea.
In its half yearly shareholders update today, Beach Petroleum reassured investors as it said it anticipates even greater growth in the second half of the present financial year.
“This half year has laid the foundations for some very exciting exploration activity in the near term,” Beach Petroleum said.
“In the 2008 Half Year, Beach Petroleum continued to deliver underlying revenue and earnings growth through solid oil production in a high oil price environment, with a present reserves to production life of 9 to 10 years,” the company said.
Shares in BPT closed 5.5 cents down at $1.265.
