Triangle poised to drill into first North Perth Basin well

Triangle Energy Global expects to have the drill rods turning late next month at its Booth-1 well in the North Perth Basin after the company today confirmed the rig will soon be released to the joint venture (JV) project.

Management today confirmed its “Ventia 106” rig would take about 10 days to mobilise to Booth-1 and that preparatory works for the drill pad were nearing completion and a new water supply well had been drilled.

The Booth prospect hosts a prospective resource range of between 113 billion cubic feet of gas (Bcf) and 540Bcf, with a best estimate of 279Bcf. Additional potential is believed to exist for oil or gas in the overlying Dongara and Jurassic sandstones.

The Booth-1 well, in the east of the JV’s L7 Permit, is the first hole to be drilled in the new campaign and will target gas in the Kingia-High Cliff reservoirs. Interestingly, it will be the first well drilled within the JV’s two permits in the Perth Basin for 30 years.

Triangle attributes that fact to the massive technical improvements in petro-gas exploration since then, including 3D seismic, other 3D geological reservoir modelling and vastly-enhanced geophysical logging techniques. The advances have led to the discovery of many new oil and gas prospects and, in the local context, have highlighted major untapped potential in the Perth Basin’s least-explored acreage.

Triangle has farmed out a 50 per cent interest in L7 and EP437, which also hosts the Becos oil prospect, to Strike Energy and New Zealand Oil and Gas (25 per cent each). The company’s share of the cost of the Booth-1 well is estimated to be less than $1.5 million.

The JV also has Becos in its sights as the second target for its current campaign. Targeting the Bookara sandstone at only 1000m deep, Becos will not require as big a rig as the Ventia 106, which will potentially run to about 2900m depth.

Becos lies about 16km west of Booth. Triangle says the target is expected to be drilled in September, subject to Environmental Protection Authority and final JV approvals.

Looking at a possible third well, Triangle says a few other good gas target candidates lie within the L7 Permit. The most appealing is Huntswell Deep, a previously unmapped structure that was identified on 3D seismic about 6km north-west of Booth.

Other new target offerings include the MH-2 Updip and Mountain Bridge South prospects in the southern portion of L7. Both are centred about 10km west of Booth.

Additionally, management says new oil prospects being routinely identified by data re-evaluation and modern modelling of seismic and other data add significantly to its portfolio of exploration potential within the two permits.

They include a big basement high underlying the MH-2 Updip prospect thought likely to be overlain by a sandstone reservoir and which management says is an untested play. It underlies the potential Jurassic-to-Permian oil-prone sandstone reservoirs in the area that may lie as little as 3km south of the renowned Mount Horner oilfield.

The hit movie Top Gun popularised the expression, “target-rich environment” and the term seems to aptly encapsulate what Triangle has in front of it within its Perth Basin JV permits.

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