IVZ media thread, page-5109

This is virgin well territory, where we are still trying to work out exactly what's down there. It occurs to me that poor hole conditions mean lots of porosity and varying pressures at different levels, which could mean multiple thick zones of gas , condensate and hopefully light oil.

To have great hole conditions might mean that all the ground down there is hard rock with no porosity for anything to move, so hole stays stable, which is the opposite of what we want..

Most drillers on ASX are drilling into a known formation with one or 2 levels that have provided gas or oil in other traps, so the companies are trying to mimic nearby neighbours. Take Strike as an example, they knew what the formations were from previously drilled wells in Perth basin, and knew where they were looking for gas (as in Kingia sandstone), with lots of known parameters about it.

Here, the only clue we have is the outcrops well to the East at the edge of the basin, but in the middle where we are drilling, we are flying blind. Not quite as blind as Mk 1 but none the less we really don't have a handle on the full geology at depth. Every hole will tell everyone a lot more.

By the time the basin has 20-30 holes in it, the gained knowledge will allow for much smoother drilling and faster lining of holes as drillers aim for specific zones. This is a wildcat, and extremely risky endeavour we are undertaking here with huge reward/risk characteristics.