Australian explorer Beach Energy on March 22 announced a gas discovery at the Artisan 1 location in licence VIC/P43 offshore Victorian Otway basin.  

The Artisan 1 exploration well was spudded by the Diamond Offshore Ocean Onyx rig on February 23, approximately 30 km offshore Victoria, and marks the start of Beach’s offshore drilling campaign. Beach is the operator with 60% interest.  

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The well was drilled to a total depth of 2,205 m measured depth and penetrated the primary Upper Waarre Formation at 1,921 m, approximately 92 m high to prognosis. The well intersected a gross gas column of 69.5 m measured depth in the Upper Waarre Formation, including 62.9 m of net gas pay, with a gas-water contact intersected at 1,990 m, Beach said. A gross gas column of 20.9 m was also intersected in the secondary target of the Flaxman Formation from 1902.8 m, with net gas pay of 4.6 m. 

The well is being cased and suspended as a future producer with an opportunity to tie into the offshore pipeline, currently delivering gas from the offshore Thylacine and Geographe fields to the Otway gas plant, at a later date, Beach added. The rig will move to the Geographe field after the casing operations and start the first of two in-field development wells before moving to the Thylacine field for an additional four in-field wells. First gas from the new Geographe wells is expected in FY22.