Offshore staff
SYDNEY, Australia -- AWE Ltd's (Australian Worldwide Exploration) eight well, continuous offshore drilling campaign in New Zealand's Taranaki basin is set to start with the drilling rig Ocean Patriot now on tow for the first well site. The 2006 drilling campaign is the biggest in AWE's history and is believed to be the largest, continuous, offshore drilling program ever undertaken in New Zealand.
AWE will operate all eight wells in the offshore Taranaki basin program. The first well, Tieke-1, which has a potential recoverable volume of 15 MMbbl of oil, is expected to start drilling in a week once theOcean Patriot is relocated from the Canterbury basin where it recently completed drilling the Cutter 1 well. AWE has a 42.5% interest in the Tieke-1 well and the Tui area oil development.
Tieke-1 is in PMP 38158, 40 km (25 mi) off the west coast of New Zealand's North Island and approximately 8 km (5 mi) from the Tui oil field (see figure 1). The well will be drilled to a planned total depth of 3,600 m (11,811 ft), in 122 m (400 ft) water depth and is expected to take 18 days on a 'trouble free' basis.
Recent exploration in the Taranaki basin by AWE and its joint venture partners has resulted in three commercial discoveries from only five exploration wells in the past four years. These discoveries, Tui, Amokura, and Pateke, are being developed as part of the Tui area oil development within PMP 38158. The development drilling for this project, comprising four horizontal development wells will start immediately after the completion of the Tieke-1 well.
11/21/2006
