Australia: Eastern Star Gas Starts Operations at Tintsfield Pilot

Eastern Star Gas Limited, Operator of the Narrabri Gas Joint Venture, announced that operation of the Tintsfield Lateral Well Pilot will commence today.

The Tintsfield Pilot is located around 8 km southwest of Narrabri and is the first pilot to target the extensive Hoskissons coal seam. Although the pilot was drilled in the first half of 2010, persistent wet weather during last year prevented completion of water handling facilities necessary for its operation. Operation of the pilot has been made possible following completion of the first stage of the facilities, a water holding pond adjacent to the Wilga Park Power Station. All production from Tintsfield is piped to Wilga Park where water can be handled and gas used as fuel for generation of electricity

Mr David Casey, Managing Director of ESG, said “operation of the Tintsfield Pilot is an important step forward for the Narrabri Gas Project as, in targeting the Hoskissons coal seam, the pilot opens up a whole new gas reserves horizon. The Hoskissons coal seam has not to date been taken into account in independent gas reserves certification work and production results from the pilot should make a major contribution to our next gas reserves upgrade.”

Mr Casey added that “commencement of Tintsfield operations is also timely in that we are in the process of bringing three new gas engine driven generators on line at Wilga Park. The capacity of the power station is being increased from 7 MW to 16 MW to utilise growing gas production from all pilots, including Tintsfield.”

ESG anticipates the Tintsfield Pilot will need to be operated for several months to provide data required for the next gas reserves review. The review will also take account of production performance of other existing pilots and corehole drilling programme results.

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Source: Eastern Star Gas, April 1, 2011;