Australian Strike’s Jaws-1 Vertical Well Completed

Australian Strike Energy saw the completion of its vertical well construction over the weekend at its Jaws-1 project in the Cooper Basin. The drilling program is on track to be finished next month and ready for fracture stimulation, the company said March 12.

“The vertical well was the first of a two well appraisal campaign designed to prove commercial flow rates of gas and assess the quality of Strike’s Southern Cooper Basin Project in PEL96 (Strike 66.67% and operator, Energy World Corporation 33.33%),” Strike said.

The work is being undertaken by US multinational Halliburton and the horizontal well is due to be spudded in the coming days.

Strike says the project has direct access to infrastructure connecting it to the tight eastern Australian gas markets and is aiming for sales gas this year.

“The Cooper Basin is known as Australia’s most prolific onshore hydrocarbon region and has been recognised as the most likely source of gas to supply the looming Eastern Australia gas shortfall. Strike is focused on the rapid appraisal and commercialisation of a very large gas resource contained within PEL 94, PEL 95 and PEL 96 to meet this demand and has signed conditional gas off-take agreements with three substantial domestic gas consumers,” the company says on its website.

Australia-based energy advisory firm EnergyQuest said March 12 that the outcome of Strike’s Jaws-1 well “will be critical for a number of east coast gas buyers”.