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Asia: Woodside makes new oil find at Australia's Laverda North oil field

https://www.chemnet.com   May 06,2011 Platts
Woodside Petroleum has made a new oil discovery at the Laverda North-2 appraisal well off Western Australia, raising expectations that the area holds more than 100 million barrels, the company said in a statement Thursday.

The Laverda North-2 well, drilled last month, discovered a gross interval of 18 meters of new oil-bearing sands, Woodside said. Wireline sampling from the new zone recovered more than 20 liters oil to the surface.

"As expected, the well also intersected a gross interval of about 10 meters of oil-bearing sands in the Laverda oil field, which was discovered by Woodside in 2000," the company added. "Preliminary evaluation is progressing and now suggests that the combined volumes of the Greater Laverda area have the potential to contain a recoverable volume in excess of 100 million barrels of oil [on a] 100% basis."

Woodside added that more work was required to confirm the ultimate size of the accumulations, and further appraisal drilling and analysis, as well as geological and reservoir modelling, was expected to be conducted to refine the volume.

The Greater Laverda area is located in WA-36-R in Western Australia's Exmouth sub-basin, about 10 km (6.2 miles) west of the Woodside-operated Enfield oil project. Woodside holds 60% of WA-36-R with Mitsui E&P Australia holding the remaining 40% interest.

At the end of the first quarter of 2011, Enfield was producing about 29,000 b/d.

Woodside also has interests in the nearby Vincent and Stybarrow oil projects, where its equity is 60% and 50% respectively. Vincent, also a joint venture with Mitsui, was producing at about 28,000 b/d at the end of the first quarter, while the Stybarrow project, owned jointly with BHP Billiton, was pumping around 26,000 b/d.

Laverda North-2 was a planned sidetrack to the Laverda North-1 appraisal well. It was drilled to a total measured depth of 2,300 meters, Woodside said.
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