Santos sees early signs of pay at Dorado-3
Australia’s Santos has found signs of hydrocarbons at its Dorado-3 appraisal well, with definitive results to follow after wireline logging is completed, its partner Carnarvon Petroleum reported on August 28.
A 175-metre core has been extracted from the well, which targeted the Caley and Baxter reservoirs, Perth-based Carnarvon said.
“Increased resistivity observed from LWD [logging while drilling] tools indicated porous and permeable zones with indications of hydrocarbons as anticipated in the Caley and Baxter members,” it said. “Wireline logging is required to obtain definitive results and this will commence once the final core section is extracted and the well has drilled to the total depth of approximately 4,575 metres measured depth.”
Dorado was discovered off the coast of Western Australia in 2018, and has been hailed as one of the country’s biggest offshore finds in recent years. Santos said on August 22 it had raised its gross best estimate for contingent resources at Dorado by 68% to 310mn boe, including 158mn barrels of oil and 628bn ft3 of gas.