The UK's Premier Oil said Monday that a potential commercial oil discovery has been made at the Buton block in Sulawesi, Indonesia.
The Benteng-1 exploration well at the block reached a total depth of 12,424 feet, and is being plugged and abandoned as a small but potentially commercially viable oil discovery, Premier said in a filing to the London Stock Exchange.
"Good oil shows were encountered over a 111 feet interval from a depth of 2,375 ft and initial log analysis indicates a 15 feet oil bearing tertiary limestone reservoir," the company said.
Premier has a 30% interest in the block, while Japan's Japex owns the remainder and is operator. The block spans both onshore and offshore acreage at Buton island.
This is the first well to discover hydrocarbons in the frontier Buton Basin, Premier said.
"The Benteng-1 results are encouraging as they have established a working petroleum system in a previously unproven basin," said company CEO Simon Lockett.
Premier had previously indicated that the block had a gross prospective resource estimate of 77 million barrels of oil equivalent.
The Benteng-1 well was drilled to test two play types -- a shallow anticline and a deeper fault dependent trap. The hydrocarbons were discovered in the shallow play type. The results of the well will now be integrated into an existing database to determine the commercial viability of the discovery and the follow-on potential in the shallow play type across the Buton block.
Premier's next exploration well in Asia will be the Chim Sao Northwest appraisal well in Vietnam's Block 12W, home to the producing Chim Sao field. The well is scheduled to be spudded in July, the company said.
