Texaco Announces Discovery Off Australia

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.