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TO: Manager, Company Announcements ASX Limited 180808
CONTACT: John Heugh +61 8 9474 1444
180808 Blamore 1 Pedirka Basin Drilling Progress Report
Announcement out at 6.42pm

The decision to plug and abandon Blamore 1 was reached today in the light of hole difficulties of long standing and equipment malfunctions effectively preventing drill stem testing of promising coal intersections showing gas saturation and permeability. The well has had an extended operating history and the Company has 6 other wells to drill in a robust programme during 2008.
Redrilling of Blamore 1 is an option before the Company at a later date but Hunt Rig 2 is now being mobilised to the site of CBM93001 further updip to test what is interpreted to be from recent seismic, essentially a similar package of coals to that encountered in Blamore 1.
Preliminary significant results from Blamore 1 subject to further analysis include :
• Blamore-1 was the first well in the Pedirka Basin area to encounter oil shows at the Algebuckina Sandstone / Murta Siltstone reservoir –seal couplet. The zone has a 15 m residual oil column with porosities of up to 25% in the Algebuckina Sandstone. The original oil pool may have been Jurassic or Permian sourced and confirms for the first time oil generation in the adjacent Madigan and Eringa Troughs which greatly enhances the prospectivity for oil in Central’s extensive holdings in this region.
• Significant thicknesses of gas bearing coal were encountered, up to 160m net, 4 times more than expected, in a seismic package which is able to be correlated updip to the shallower Andado shelf area, the focus of initial CBM exploration
• The presence of C1 up to C5 gases (peak reading of 233 units-each unit being 100 parts per million - ppm) in the coal indicating higher calorific value of gases in the area of the Blamore 1 well compared to industry average Coal Bed Methane well production (CBM). Such gas compositions may continue updip at least for some distance.
• The presence was demonstrated of a very thick sequence of mature exinite rich coal source rocks enhancing prospectivity for Permian sourced oil in the basin generally.
• A novel application of the MREX (Nuclear Magnetic Resonance electric logging tool) to coals at Blamore 1 indicated significant permeability and gas in coals even at the depths encountered, which if able to be calibrated against later real DST data may significantly increase the targeted potential recoverable resource base in the basin by extending the recoverable zone to depths of 1,500m plus.
John Heugh, Central’s Managing Director, commenting on the results from Blamore 1 today said “The results of Blamore 1, although somewhat disappointing in respect to the failure to reach planned Total Depth of 2,500m (TD) and to test all targeted conventional hydrocarbon targets, are however, unequivocally positive in the implications for future exploration for both
conventional oil targets and for our plans to explore for CBM resources of some magnitude in the Pedirka Basin with our Joint Venture Partners Petroleum Exploration Australia. The Company plans on spudding its first CBM well, 93001 by Monday of next week but even this well has at least some potential for conventionally reservoired hydrocarbons in addition to its undoubted CBM potential”