Beach Energy Limited advises of a new field oil discovery at the Pennington-1 exploration well, located 9 kilometres due east of the Bauer oilfield, in PEL 91 (Beach 40% and operator, Drillsearch Energy Limited 60%).

The Pennington-1 well was a deviated well and encountered a gross oil column of five metres in the McKinlay Sandstone, contiguous with a net oil column of eight metres in the Namur Sandstone and a separate six metre net oil column in the mid-Namur Sandstone. Oil shows in the deeper Birkhead Formation require further evaluation to determine the presence of moveable oil in this section, which appears to be seven metres thick.

Data gathered from wireline logs indicates that the upside pre-drill estimates will be exceeded and are likely to be in excess of two millionbarrels of recoverable oil. As mentioned above, the Birkhead shows will be further evaluated at a later date for fluid content, productivity and volumes via drill stem testing. The well will be cased and suspended as a future oil producer.

Tags: Beach Energy Limited