Santos, Octanex Find More Oil in Winchester Well (Australia)

Santos Offshore Pty Ltd (Santos), the Operator of the Winchester-1/ST-1 exploration well drilled in the Dampier Sub-basin permit WA-323-P, offshore Australia, has advised its partner Octanex that their evaluation and analysis of data obtained from the well has been completed.

The most recent analysis of all wireline logs, pressure testing and formation sampling of the well that has been completed by Santos has confirmed the presence of additional hydrocarbons in the well.

On 18 July 2013, Octanex announced that the wireline logging of the section from 3614m to 3721m MDRT (measured depth below rotary table) contained approximately 40m of confirmed net gas pay.

Analysis of the more recently acquired log data, obtained to the well total depth of 4019m MDRT, has increased the confirmed condensate-bearing net gas pay in the well below 3614m MDRT to 58m.

The hydrocarbons were encountered in stacked sands of the Late Jurassic Angel Formation and the Late Triassic Mungaroo Formation, with sample hydrocarbons recovered to surface during the logging operations carried out prior to the 18 July announcement.

The Winchester discovery is located near existing pipeline and processing infrastructure and likely future infrastructure extensions. This offers a number of potential commercialisation options. Operations since the last Progress Report, released on 5 August, have seen the final wireline logging completed and well abandonment operations commenced. The abandonment operations are expected to be completed and the Ensco-109 jack-up rig released by approximately 21 August 2013.

The participants in the WA-323-P and WA-330-P permits and their Joint Venture are:

Santos Offshore Pty Ltd 75% (Subsidiary of SANTOS Limned (ASX Code: STO)

Winchester Resources NL 25% (Subsidiary of Octanex N.L. (ASX Code: OXX)