Santos has contracted the Noble Tom Prosser jackup rig to drill the Pavo-1 and Apus-1 exploration wells offshore Western Australia, its partner Carnarvon Petroleum said on March 3.  

The drilling programme is expected to begin in late 2021 with the Pavo-1 well and will be immediately followed by the Apus-1 well. The company believes that both prospects have the potential to materially increase the aggregate development resource for the Dorado field if successful. 

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Apus and Pavo are two exploration targets near the Dorado discovery in the Bedout basin. Pavo-1 well will target 101mn boe while Apus-1 well will target 307mn boe.  The Dorado oil and gas field, one of the biggest finds off Australia in recent years with 283mn barrels of oil equivalent proven and contingent resources, is in permit WA-437-P offshore Western Australia. Carnarvon holds a 20% interest in the project while the rest 80% is held by Santos (operator). 

“Given the potential resource size and development aggregation benefits, these two drilling targets provide very attractive and meaningful opportunities for Carnarvon,” Carnarvon CEO Adrian Cook said. “We are looking forward to an exciting year ahead with multiple drilling operations progressing to plan as well as the advancement of our Dorado development pre-Feed and Feed activities.”