The well is flowing clean oil at a rate of 372 barrels a day with a well head pressure of 25 psi on a ½ inch choke, the company said.

"A potential six metres of net pay is interpreted from the wireline logs and sidewall cores," Victoria Petroleum said in a statement.

"The forward plan is to place Mirage-1 on free flow at rates of up to 400 barrels of oil per day while awaiting the installation of a beam pump production facility.

"The determination of the recoverable oil reserves for the Mirage Oil Field will be subject to further development drilling on the Mirage Oil Field."

Mirage-1 is located in PEL 115 near the Ventura-1 well that recovered 44 barrels of clean oil from the McKinlay-Namur sandstones with an indicated potential pump rate of 340 barrels of oil per day.

"An extended production test leading to long term production will now commence on the Mirage-1 well which will result in another producing oil well in PEL 115 and the South Australian Cooper Basin," Victoria Petroleum managing director John Kopcheff said.

"With our Ventura Oil Field discovery 5 kilometres to the west and now the Mirage oilfield discovery, it appears that there is a highly prospective Murta oil trend present in the southern part of the permit.

"This trend extends west to east, from the Almonta Structure, shared with Beach Petroleum, through to Victoria Petroleum's Ventura-Mirage-Lightning structures. The PEL 115 Joint Venture plans to further explore and develop the highly prospective Ventura-Mirage-Lightning trend in 2005."

The participants in the production testing of Mirage-1 and PEL 115 are Victoria Petroleum (operator) 40%, Roma Petroleum 20%, Impress Ventures Ltd 15%, Entek Energy Ltd 12.5% and Tacnas Pty Ltd 12.5%.