Texaco announced two
new gas discoveries in the Northern Carnarvon Basin, offshore Western Australia by joint ventures comprising Texaco, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell and BP. The Iago-1 well, located in Exploration Permit WA-25-P and the Io-1 well in Exploration Permit WA-267-P follow successful wildcat discoveries Geryon-1 (1999), Orthrus-1 (1999), Urania-1 (2000), Maenad-1 (2000) and Jansz-1 (2000) made by Texaco and its partners in the same area adjacent to the giant Gorgon gas field.
The Iago-1 well was drilled to a total depth of 11,100 feet in a water depth of 387 feet. Wireline logs and formation tests have been run and indicate that a hydrocarbon column has been intersected in the Triassic Mungaroo Formation primary objective. The well was plugged and abandoned as a
gas discovery on January 3rd.
The Io-1 well was drilled to a total depth of 9,941 feet in a water depth of 4,436 feet. The well was plugged and abandoned as a gas discovery on January 14th.
Both wells were drilled by the Marine 500 which is a `fit for purpose' deepwater drilling rig capable of operating in water depths up to 5,000 feet.