CENTRAL Petroleum has announced a 16% upgrade to its 2P reserves across its three producing fields in the Northern Territory to a total of 162.2 petajoule-equivalent, with plans to develop new low cost supply via a series of lateral wells. 

Netherland Sewell & Associates have independently verified the upgrade. 

Central said today the rise was driven by the performance of its Palm Valley-13 well, online since May last year.  

It confirmed today a 2C contingent gas resource of 105PJ which it believes could be unlocked by a proposed Stairway appraisal program at its Mereenie field and further infill wells at Palm Valley. It shares Mereenie with fertiliser maker Incitec Pivot.   

The company is planning to implement a new strategy to appraise its production from the Stairway Sandstone at its Mereenie field. Subject to joint venture approval  it will use lateral drilling from existing wells at locations that had prior observed gas shows while drilling through the stairway. 

It says the appraisal work will target a new material gas resource which could "significantly" increase the gas produced from the Mereenie field with minimal investment in existing production facilities  

At Palm Valley its PV-13 horizontal well in the Pacoota Sandstone "continues to show excellent performance, with more than 2.6PJ recovered over 13 months". The well recently only came off a  7 terajoule day plateau limited only by wellhead facilities. 

The company is now seeking to capitalise on the PV13 success via drilling future laterals from existing wells to access poorly connected parts of the reservoir.  

Source: Energy News Bulletin