perth basin drilling starts

Roc Oil (WA) Pty Limited, a wholly owned subsidiary of ROC, is pleased to announce the commencement of a two well exploration/appraisal drilling programme in WA-286-P, in the North Perth Basin, offshore Western Australia.
At 0100 hours (local time) on 3 February 2008, the Premium "WilCraft" jack-up drilling rig commenced drilling the Lilac-1 exploration well, in 33 metres of water approximately 2.5 kilometres east of the Dunsborough-1 oil and gas discovery made in the permit in June 2007.
Lilac-1 is expected to reach a Total Depth of approximately 1,435 mBRT in mid-February, 2008.
As of 0600 (local time) on 4 February 2008 the current operation was preparing to run 13-3/8" casing.
Following the drilling of Lilac-1, an appraisal well, Frankland-2, also in WA-286-P, will be drilled. The two well drilling programme is expected to be completed by the end of February 2008.
Commenting on the commencement of the drilling programme, Dr John Doran, ROC’s Chief Executive Officer, stated that:
"These next two wells in the offshore Perth Basin will go a long way towards determining the near term potential for a new field development in the region. Therefore, although we can’t predict whether or not the wells will be successful we can definitely say that they will be interesting!"
Participating Interests in the WA-286-P joint venture are:
Roc Oil (WA) Pty Ltd............................................................37.5%
AWE Oil (Western Australia) Pty Ltd......................................27.5%
ARC (Offshore PB) Limited....................................................30.0%
CIECO Exploration and Production (Australia) Pty Ltd............5.0%