Re Mereenie, the two new Pacoota wells are low risk crestal wells that will provide a big uplift in field production rate but won't add much if anything to 2P reserves because that volume is already accounted for. These wells need to be drilled to access this crestal gas though because gas doesn't flow downhill.
The real interest for me in terms of value is this proposed Stairway lateral. They drilled one a few years ago under RC and it was an utter duster, so I went back over that Well Completion Report to try and work out why they think this time will be different.
Basically the last well was sited based on curvature mapping which was theorised to result in maximum fracture development. This was probably correct but the fractures were all mineralised so there was no permeability. But when I looked at where it was drilled, I noticed there were no Stairway wells nearby and those that were closest didn't flow. In other words they drilled in an area which the modelling indicated would be fractured but the actual well data nearby indicated no flow. In hindsight this was a poor decision.
The new well is planned further east along the crest of the anticline and importantly, it is located in an area where the nearby Stairway tests actually flowed gas on testing. So this is a much less risky well and could result in a series of laterals in this area and significant new reserves.
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