ctp

January 26, 2010
Central Petroleum?s First Coal Seam Gas Well Of 2010 Finds A Thicker-Than-Expected Coal Intersection

By Amy McLellan

Central Petroleum has got the New Year off to a good start with its five-well campaign in the under-explored emptiness of Australia?s Northern Territory delivering an early discovery. The ASX-quoted company is exploring the coal seam gas (CSG) potential of the little-drilled Pedirka Basin, southeast of Alice Springs in central Australia, which it hopes will yield the kind of resource that will justify development in this remote region and attract the kind of investor buzz that CSG plays elsewhere in Australia have generated. Central is the operator, with a 70 per cent interest, alongside Petroleum Exploration Australia, which holds 20 per cent, and Red Sky Energy, which holds 10 per cent.

The first well in the campaign has been classed as a coal discovery, with the well encountering 144 metres of coal in seams each more than one metre thick. This was better than anticipated. The well was drilled nine kilometres updip of an earlier well, drilled in 2008, that found 143 metres of coal. This seems to point to a possibly significant coal resource, which seismic surveys appear to show is widespread in this area. Initial gas desorption results varied from fair to excellent.