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Briggs strikes Kentucky oil with lucky 13

12th October 2007, 9:00 WST



Veteran deal maker Peter Briggs was last night toasting his latest success after discovering oil in America.

Not only did his explorer Westralian Gas & Power strike oil, but the black gold gushed out at such high volumes that drilling of the Riddle Well No. 13, in the US state of Kentucky, had to be stopped.

Short of disclosing flow rates and the likely size of the oil find, Westralian said the well could not be drilled any further due to the flow of “large volumes of pure oil to the surface”.

With drilling halted, the well was secured as a producer. Westralian will now embark on flow rate tests to work out exactly how much oil is beneath the surface.

Mr Briggs, the chairman and biggest shareholder of Westralian, said the well turned out to be the “not so unlucky No. 13”.

“The real great thing about Well 13 is that there’s no water, no gas, it’s just oozing out of the ground on its own accord,” he said.

Westralian shareholders soaked up the oil strike, sending the explorer’s shares up 19.5¢, or 144 per cent, to 33¢ after peaking intra-day at 39¢. More than 31 million shares changed hands amid the frenzy created by the Riddle discovery.

Mr Briggs owns about 19 per cent of Westralian, equivalent to $4 million worth of scrip.

“Aah, yes, we’ll probably have a glass of something cold to celebrate,” he said last night. “I’m not big on champagne; I might try a nice chardonnay.”

The well is the sixth of a drilling program covering the Riddle prospect and easily the most successful. Previous wells had produced gas and oil shows but nothing significant, while No. 14 had to be abandoned temporarily due to technical problems.

The oil found by No. 13 is about 500m below the surface.

Mr Briggs said he expected No. 13 to become a core plank of Westralia’s ambitions to build a 200-300 barrel of oil a day network of wells on the prospect