Junior partner Impress Energy said yesterday that equipment had arrived on site and was being rigged up in preparation for the test over the coming days.

Wilpinnie-4 was drilled in January, after the PEL 115 joint venture farmed-in to the Wilpinnie North Block in PPL 93.

The well intersected an 18-metre oil column in the Jurassic Mid Namur reservoir, which on test flowed 144 barrels of oil per day and was subsequently cased and suspended as a future oil producer.

Impress said the cased hole production test would test both the upper part of the reservoir seen by the initial test as well as the zone immediately below, where reservoir quality is interpreted to improve.

The nearby Wilpinnie-3 well initially flowed at 785bopd before declining to 41bopd and 20 barrels of water per day at the end of the test.

Covering 400 acres, the Tomcat prospect covers 400 acres and is estimated to contain 3.5 million barrels of recoverable oil reserves at the P50 level of confidence.

Stakes in Wilpinnie-5 and PPL 93 are: Santos (33%), Impress (20%), Victoria Petroleum (20%), Delhi (10.105%), Roma Petroleum (10%) and Origin Energy (6.595%).