The latest discovery follows the 90 barrels of oil per day (bopd) announced earlier this week from the mid-Tinchoo Formation in the well, which is being drilled as an appraisal well by the Stuart Petroleum / Beach Petroleum Joint Venture.

The test was being undertaken over the interval 2,308 to 2,323 metres in the lower Triassic section of the well. A further 80 bbls of oil and 12 bbls of water were recovered from the drill pipe.

Stuart Petroleum's operations director, Rod Hollingsworth, said logging and production testing will be required to determine the stabilised flow rate.

"If we don't have any more delays - not that I mind finding oil - the results of logging should be available on Monday. We're only 50 metres or so away from target depth," he said.

The Acrasia-2 well follows the 3.7 million barrels (mmbbls) oil field discovery made by Stuart (75%) and Beach (25%) in the Acrasia-1 well completed in April. Mr Hollingsworth said the new oil flow from Acrasia-2 was only 57m above the planned target depth for the well of 2,380m.

"This is an exciting new discovery from well below the mid-Tinchoo result and confirms our decision earlier this week to case Acrasia-2 as a producer," he said.

"We have yet to determine if it is a Basal Callamurra or Basal Paning play. This second pool was not indicated in the first well so we'll have to remap the structure," said Hollingsworth.

Hollingsworth said he too was disappointed earlier this week when they found some of the targetted formations were poorly developed and flowed water with no oil. The partners' share price dropped sharply until they recovered following the news of the first new oil pool discovery. At press time Stuart was trading at 65c after dropping to mid 40's and Beach at 34c.

"The Joint Venture has achieved its objective of developing two offtake points for oil production from the field. This gives us wider options to consider in terms of whether we now route production via pipelines or trucking."