Cooper completed the financial period on a strong note, producing 31,016 barrels of oil and receiving oil sales revenue of $2.7 million in the June quarter, a 150% and 286% increase over the same period last year.

Cooper Energy chief executive Mike Scott said the excellent result came on the back of two new Cooper Basin oil discoveries at Christies and Worrior, with both being brought into production quickly.

“These results are an absolutely outstanding achievement given Cooper listed just over two years ago as an explorer and is now a junior producer with interests in three oil fields at Sellicks, Christies and Worrior,” he said.

“In the short term, development and exploration activities in the Cooper Basin will assist in boosting production levels. Given we sell all our oil at spot prices, we are well positioned to take full advantage of the rising oil price.

“The next round of development activity has begun with jet pump artificial lift installed at Worrior. This has boosted Worrior production to greater than 2100 barrels of oil per day, up approximately 60% from the 1300 barrels of oil per day on natural flow,” said Scott.

“Drilling recommences in August with the Worrior-2 and Christies-2 appraisal and development wells and exploration begins in September with the drilling of Arwon-1, estimated to contain approximately three to four million barrels of potential recoverable oil.”

Scott said the company’s strategy to date had been simple but effective - focus on low cost entry into an onshore basin with established infrastructure to allow the expeditious conversion of discoveries into cash generating assets.

“In the longer term, our vision is to reach a net reserves level of 50 million barrels of oil. The Cooper Basin engine room has put the company in a strong financial position and provided the springboard to look further a field for bigger opportunities that are commensurate with our risk profile.

“We are currently evaluating a number of international business development opportunities to turn our vision into reality.”

Stock in Copper was up slightly this morning at 21 cents but still below its February peak of 26 cents.