The eagerly awaited follow up to the Acrasia-1 oil discovery spudded this week. The Stuart Petroleum/Beach Petroleum joint venture, which in April this year made the historic discovery in the South Australia portion of the Cooper Basin, said they had commenced drilling 1.2 kilometres west of the original Acrasia-1 wellsite.

The Acrasia-1 well, in the Cooper Basin.

The result of the first well was the discovery of a 3.7 million barrel oilfield - the first new well and oil discovery by an independent operator in the Cooper Basin SA region in more than 20 years.

Stuart Petroleum, which has a 75% interest in the exploration program and is operator in the field, also announced a further three wells in the SA Cooper Basin region in the current calendar year.

The Joint Venture will also this month commence initial oil production from the Acrasia-1 discovery, transforming Stuart Petroleum from an oil explorer to an oil producer. Beach, which has a 25% interest in the Acrasia Joint Venture, already has producing oil and gas interests in southwest Queensland and Victoria's onshore Otway Basin.

Stuart Petroleum's operations director, Rod Hollingsworth, said initial oil production from the Acrasia-1 field would be at a rate of about 500 barrels a day (bopd) building to 1,000 bopd.

"Acrasia-2 is aimed at expanding the Acrasia oilfield resource and is to explore the western sector of the structure for further recoverable oil," he said.

"If successful, the new well will provide the joint venture with a second take off point for more efficient drainage of oil from the Acrasia field."

Mr Hollingsworth said Acrasia-2 will appraise the top Hutton oil pool at this more western locality in the field and will explore the Birkhead, basal Hutton, Poolowanna and Tinchoo Formations for additional recoverable oil.

"Acrasia-1 flowed commercial quantities of oil from the Tinchoo Formation, and recovered significant quantities of oil from the Hutton and Birkhead Formations on drill stem test in April," Mr Hollingsworth said.

"The second well will explore these sands for additional recoverable oil and test the basal Hutton and Poolowanna Formations which were not able to be tested in Acrasia-1. The top Hutton sands are within closure and are confidently expected to contain an oil column."

Acrasia-2 will be drilled to a target depth of 2,380 metres, with drilling expected to take 21 days, using the same rig as for the first well.

The Joint Venture is establishing a 900-barrel surface storage facility at Acrasia-1 as it proceeds with production testing of the original discovery.

The field is located 90 kilometres north of Innamincka in the southeast corner of the Candra Block of PEL 90.

Mr Hollingsworth said the new Acrasia-2 well will kick off a four-well program by Stuart Petroleum in the Cooper Basin for the remainder of 2002.

"This program will include Stuart's first gas exploration wells, Doriemus-1 and Paning-1, as well as another oil target - all in our Cooper Basin licence areas," he said.

"These wells will test prospects which Stuart ranks highly and if successful, will have a significant effect on the company's value and future."

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