Quadrant Energy and its junior partner Carnarvon Petroleum are...

Quadrant Energy and its junior partner Carnarvon Petroleum are believed to have struck oil in their Dorado-1 well in the Roebuck Basin off northwestern Western Australia. Carnarvon, which has been in a trading halt since Monday, noted late last week that it had brought forward a wireline logging program “to immediately quantify the extent of the positive results received so far”. It is understood that the testing has confirmed a significant oil discovery, which if true would be a major breakthrough for Carnarvon. The Dorado well was originally targeting gas, although the company had flagged back in April that the structure could also host oil. The Dorado structure was originally estimated to contain a gross mean recoverable prospective resource of 545 billion standard cubic feet of gas and 30 million barrels of associated condensate, but a meaningful oil strike would no doubt prompt a review of those estimates. An oil strike would be the biggest breakthrough in the Roebuck Basin since Carnarvon and its joint venture partner at the time, Apache Energy, struck gas at the Phoenix prospect in 2014. Elsewhere in the sector, junior play American Patriot Oil & Gas is expected to announce it has picked up more fields in Texas in a $US20 million ($26.9m)-plus deal. It is understood the latest deal will see American Patriot acquire Foothills Resources and the Magnolia and Burnett oil and gasfields, effectively doubling the company’s projected earnings next year. The company is believed to have attracted debt funding from a US hedge fund. There will also be a placement to institutional shareholders and a rights issue underwritten by existing American Patriot shareholder Capital Investment Partners. Back in February, American Patriot announced it had picked up the equivalent of 1 million barrels of oil through its acquisition of ground in East Texas.