Cooper Energy

Cooper Energy's Jolly-1 well in the Ottaway Basin's Penola trough in South Australia has been spudded and will run a 13.375-inch surface casing.

The well is aimed at assessing the unconventional oil and gas potential of shales within the Caserton formation, drilling to 4000m and collecting 100m of core.

Jolly-1 sits within the PEL 495 permit and has an anticipated duration of 57 days.

Buru Energy

Buru Energy has suffered setbacks at Ungani 3 in Western Australia's Canning Basin, with the well facing delays in rigging up due to Tropical Cyclone Christine and a number of operational and commissioning issues.

Ungani 3 is expected to spud in the coming week.

Ungani 2 is producing 1000 barrels of oil per day to meet trucking capacity, with no significant water production, while Ungani 1 is going through clean-up and will connect to the production system during the week.

Additional trucks are on their way to allow the extended production test to reach the targeted 1500bpd from Ungani 1 and 2.

Meanwhile, the loading of the first 30,000 barrels of oil from the Wyndham export facility are scheduled for the end of next week.

Empire Energy

Empire Energy has identified a northeastern extension to the Bradford oil field in western New York/Pennsylvania.

The company has drilled two wells in the Bradford sand formations with each expected to be commercially successful.

A typical well in the area costs Empire less than $130,000 to drill and produces for many years, with payback on the initial cost taking around a year.

Petronas

Petronas has produced first oil from the Kapal, Banang and Meranti cluster fields, offshore Peninsular Malaysia.

The cluster, operated by Coastal Energy, is an eight-year development project with Kapal being in its first production phase.

Initial production rates from the cluster were more than 10,000bpd, peaking at 13,000bpd, spurring Petronas to continue determining the potential production from three KBM fields.