Austral said on Friday evening that coil tubing operations - to clean out frac sand from within production tubing – were scheduled to be finished early this week.

Afterwards all three “fracced” zones would be flowed together, but it would take several days to properly clean-up the reservoirs and obtain controlled flow rates.

Austral chief executive Dave Bennett said reliable estimates of likely flow rates post clean-up were not yet possible, but all Eocene-aged zones had previously shown they could flow liquids to surface and enough gas to sustain a flare.

Bennett has also said the 15m top interval was within the McKee sands, the 20m middle zone within the Kapuni 1A sands, and the 60m bottom zone within the K3 sands.

Earlier this year Canadian independent consultants Sproule International estimated “probabilistic” reserves in place exceeding 215 bcf (50%) and 341 bcf (10%), plus 12.8 million (50%) and 21.5 million barrels (10%) of condensate.

Elsewhere in PEP 38738, oil production from the Cheal-A3X well was continuing at stable rates with 14,000 barrels of oil and negligible associated water having been produced since testing started in late May.

Bennett added that an onshore-nearshore seismic survey was recently completed in Austral’s south Taranaki PEP 38492 licence (Austral 100%) and that good quality seismic data had identified the Inaha prospect adjacent to the shoreline.

Further processing and interpretation would be necessary before any decision to drill Inaha with an onshore deviated well could be made.

An onshore Canterbury Basin seismic survey was also underway in PEP 38256 (Austral operator, 46%).

The PEP 38738 deep partners are: operator Austral (25.1%), Cheal Petroleum (15.1%), International Resource Management (19.8%) and Genesis Energy (40%). The PEP 38738 shallow partners are: operator Austral (36.5%), Cheal Petroleum (30.5%) and IRM (33%).