Cooper drills dry hole in S. Madura PSC

Australia-listed oil, gas firm Cooper Energy reported on Friday that the Gigir East-1 exploration well in South Madura PSC, onshore Madura island, East Java did not encounter commercial hydrocarbon and the well was plugged and abandoned.

The company spudded the well at the end of July and it had drilled the well to total depth of 1,300 meters.

The company?s managing director Michael Scott said:?Gigir East was disappointing because we had high hopes that the seismic amplitude represented gas charged sandstones. Unfortunately this has not proved to be the case. On the positive side the well was drilled quickly, at low cost with no incidents, which further supports our reputation in Indonesia as a competent Operator. We will incorporate the results of this well into our understanding of the prospectivity of the South Madura licence and review our future exploration activity which is likely to focus on deeper plays. At the same time we will turn our operations capability towards the Sukananti block where we look forward to re-establishing production in the near future.?

Cooper is the block?s operator with 30% interest with the balance are held by AED Oil (60%) and PT Eksindo South Madura (10%). (denny)