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June-July 1954
Australia was in the midst of oil fever in July
1954. At least five wells were drilling!
The American participants probably thought it was a good omen when
they spudded the first appraisal well on the Rough Range field on
July 4th. Earlier, a flow of oil from the Birdrong Sandstone in
Rough Range-1 in December 1953 encouraged Wapet to bring two smaller
rigs from the USA to evaluate the discovery. Rough Range-2 was located
about 1900 m from the discovery well and was predicted to intersect
the reservoir 33 m up dip. Much to everyone's disappointment the
well came in low to Rough Range-1 and, like the next eight follow-up
wells, failed to find oil. Even the Rough Range-10 well, drilled
less than 250 m from the discovery well, only found a thin, non-commercial
pay zone. (Murray Johnstone's 1979 APPEA paper provides an informative
look at the logic behind the location of these ten wells). More
recent attempts by Ampolex and Empire Oil have also been unsuccessful
in obtaining sustainable production from the field.
In the meantime, Rough Range-1 continued to make very slow progress,
drilling from 9482 ft to 9911 ft in 61 days, most of the time averaging
only one foot an hour. 58 bits were consumed in the 61 days. The
average life of a bit was less than eight hours so more time was
spent tripping than drilling. The monotonous section of interbedded
silty shale and 'hard sand' (later assigned to the Permian Lyons
Group of glacial origin) was tested on a number of occasions without
recovering any hydrocarbons.
In Queensland, Winneills Pty Ltd had rigs operating on shallow wells
at Normandy and Coopers Plains near Brisbane, and at least one rig
drilling at Mount Walker where some methane was detected, probably
from the Walloon Coal Measures.
Hospital Hill-4 at Roma was finally completed on July 27th. Despite
gas being noticed in cores between 3683 and 3880 ft, and one of
these zones producing at a rate of 870 Mcfd, the well was abandoned.
The two following wells were even less successful.
And on the previous day, July 26th, a new exploration entity called
Woodside (Lakes Entrance) Oil NL was registered as a company. Almost
nine years later, after only minor success in the Gippsland Basin,
it was awarded its first blocks on the North West Shelf on June
25th 1963.
June-July 1964
31 exploration wells were drilled or drilling during the months
of June and July. It was wells in Queensland that made the headlines
in the following months.
Phillips Petroleum Company spudded Gilmore-1 on June 7th in the
Adavale Basin. After several months of drilling, the well discovered
gas in Devonian sandstone below 11,900 ft (3628 m). A production
test indicated an open flow potential of 4.33 MMcfd. The Queensland
Department of Mines was cautiously optimistic, "It is early
yet to attempt to assess the extent of this discovery.....there
is no question, however, as to its significance, since an entirely
new horizon has been opened up for investigation.....". Nevertheless,
despite three more wells in the next two years, Phillips was unable
to make the field commercial. After other operators also failed
to commercialise the gas, Energy Equity Corporation drilled Gilmore-5
in 1996 and used the gas to fuel a gas turbine at its Barcaldine
power station. Despite the government's initial optimism, Gilmore
remains the only significant Devonian discovery in eastern Australia.
In the Surat Basin, Union Oil Development spudded Alton-1 on June
26th. An open holeformation test of the Evergreen Formation over
the interval 1847-1865 m yielded 54° API crude at a rate of
1150 bbl/day and gas at a rate of 440 Mcf/day. Six more producing
wells were drilled and, by January 1966, oil was being trucked to
the Moonie pipeline.
Between June 8th and July 1st a company which has recently reappeared
on the scene, Longreach Oil, drilled a stratigraphic hole, Marchmont-1,
about 60 km northeast of Longreach in Queensland to determine the
nature of the Permian in the region. But other pioneering companies
then drilling in Queensland, such as Planet Exploration, Associated
Australian Resources (AAR), Condamine Oil and Exoil have since disappeared.
June-July 1974
Only 12 exploration wells, five onshore and seven offshore, were
drilled or drilling during June-July 1974. But unlike the previous
months of dry holes, significant gas-condensate discoveries, one
offshore and one onshore, were to be made by two of these wells.
Troubadour-1, spudded on June 3rd, was the first well and discovery
in the area now known as the Greater Sunrise gas fields in the Timor
Sea. A trip to the rig involved a 2000 km flight from Perth to Broome,
a 600 km flight from Broome to Timor then a 160 km chopper ride
across the mountains of Timor back to the Big John. BOCAL's forward
communications office was a thatched hut manned by a local WWII
war hero, at Viqueque on the south coast of Timor. One of his jobs
was to hunt the Timor ponies and water buffalo off the airstrip
before each plane or helicopter landed.
In an area where stock horses and zebu cattle were more the norm,
Bridge Oil spudded Silver Springs-1 in the Surat Basin, on June
6th. The well discovered a significant new field when it produced
gas from the Triassic Showgrounds Sandstone at a rate of 8.1 MMcfd,
accompanied by some condensate.
June 30th saw the withdrawal of the Petroleum Search Subsidy Act
which had been introduced in December 1957 at the urging of Harold
Raggart, the first Director of the Bureau of Mineral Resources (now
Geoscience Australia). Raggart had taken up the suggestion of Dr
A. I. Levorsen, one of the world's great petroleum geologists (his
text book Geology of Petroleum is a classic, whoever borrowed my
copy please return it!). The act initially provided for drilling
subsidies only (50% of the well cost) but in November 1959 it was
extended to geophysical surveys. In July 1962 the subsidy was reduced
to 30%. The first well on the North West Shelf, Ashmore Reef-1,
drilled in 1967, had an approved subsidy limit of $844,531. In 1969,
following the success of Esso-BHP in the Bass Strait, the subsidy
was dropped altogether for foreign-owned companies working offshore.
n
Acknowledgement
Photos reproduced from article by Peter Ellery, Burmah International
21.
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