Cracking day for STX, long overdue and well deserved for all LTH. Enjoying a nice whiskey tonight... Hibiki if anyone knows it.
Fun fact: It is 5 years to the day that STX made the "Staggering" Kingia Gas Discovery at West Erregulla-2... 27th August 2019... can anyone else remember it like it was yesterday?
Another fun fact: It will be 10 years to the day that a Significant new gas play was discovered by AWE... in what was a ground breaking roll-of-the-dice that discovered the greater Waitsia gas field at depths never thought possible... and which we now know as the prolific Kingia HC formation. 2nd September 2014... anyone else around that remembers that day? Can't believe it's been 10 yrs tbh.
So what is about significant gas discoveries around this time of year? And what are the chances of STX announcing another significant gas discovery at ED-1? Given today's news, IMO, very high. It will be further proof at how laterally extensive the Kingia HC formation is across the PB... and IMO STX has some of the, if the most, prolific acreage. The KHC gets quite deep out WE/ED way... and ED-1 is going to be the deepest onshore well in Aus IIRC.... over 5,200m... well over 1000m more than at Waitsia.
Todays announcement, although brief, was all I needed to give me comfort. They would have plenty of data from LWD and for me the key words of "sustained drilling breaks" with gas shows. If you care to search back... same wording of drilling breaks & gas shows was used for Waitsia discoveries (Scenicio-3, Irwin-1, Waitsia 1,2, 3 etc.)... same wording in fact for our frontier WE-2.... and for me personally NWE's LD-1... that was a big moment when I read about sustained drilling breaks... enough for me to double down before they hit the KHC. So currently at ED we have confirmed gas bearing formations across Wagina, IRCM and Kingia... and IMO a very good chance that HC will hit too... albeit it will likely be a tight formation. If so, does that make it a quadfecta? or is it Superfecta??
Not wanting to count chickens yet... but todays news further de-risks this drill event. In fact I believe it will further prove the "fill & spill" theory proposed by WGO in 2021... which means the upcoming SWE-1 drill will be eagerly anticipated. And if indeed the GWC inferred from ED-1 can be further deepened
with confidence beyond NSAI's current waterline contours, then combined WE 452PJ 2P/2C, SWE 272PJ 2U and ED 278PJ 2U... we could be looking at over 1TCF GIP for Greater Erregulla.
Further to this, if the fill & spill theory is proven, the Arrino & Kadathinni prospects become very firm indeed, proving the gas migration thru the Dandaragan Trough gas kitchen. Yes, they will be deep & expensive wells but IMO STX's acreage is now only increasing in GCoS.
Just thought to add these 2 pics below... it can help demonstrate what has been achieved in the space of ~5 years, not only in STX's acreage but the PB broadly speaking. These was basically nothing east of Waitsia / Beharra Springs.. and STX, starting with a 2C gross contingent resource of
71 BCF from within the Dongara / Wagina formation... to now over 500PJ... on its way to 1,000PJ+ in a few more years. Who in WA wouldn't want this acreage?
~2018
~2024
So my final thought on ED-1... they will be drilling thru HC and into Holmwood Shale for TD, could be by this Friday. Then time to run out the BHA and run the wireline logs.... wouldn't be surprised to see a TH this Friday, fingers crossed. What are the chances of another significant gas discovery announcement on 2nd Sep... wouldn't that be something. Happy anniversary.
GLTA
(20min delay)