tap oil says bhp billiton assessing commercial

Wednesday, April 18, 2012 by Bevis Yeo Perth based explorer Tap Oil (ASX: TAP) has said that further analysis would be needed to assess the commercial viability of the Mungaroo Formation gas find at the Tallaganda-1 exploration well in the offshore Carnarvon Basin.

Preliminary interpretation of well results confirmed that Mungaroo reservoir quality over the gas bearing interval penetrated in the well is variable at this location on the Greater Tallaganda Structure.

Tallaganda-1 will be plugged and abandoned as planned while operator BHP Billiton Petroleum (ASX BHP) completes its evaluation of the well results.

The North West Shelf well in WA-351-P is located close to the large Io/Jansz, Scarborough and Macedon fields and is just south of WA-390-P where U.S. independent Hess Corporation (NYSE: HES) has drilled a number of successful exploration and appraisal wells.

Tallaganda-1 was targeting pre-drill resources of 0.8 to 1.3 trillion cubic feet of gas.

Tap’s costs for drilling the well will be carried up to a cap of A$10 million following its farmout of 25% of its interest in the permit to BHP in 2011.