With news Sept. 6 of a “significant gas discovery” made as part of a drilling campaign in Western Australia, Strike Energy Ltd. and Warrego Energy Ltd. have hit gas in all three of their jointly pursued formations.

The latest gas discovery was made by the West Erregulla-2 well in the High Cliff sandstone where a gas column of at least 22 m was encountered, Strike Energy said in a news release.

The company said the entire section was gas saturated with a 10-m net pay, average porosity of 10.3% and sections up to 16%.

“Now with gas discoveries in the Wagina, Kingia and High Cliff sandstones, the West Erregulla trifecta has been achieved,” Strike’s Managing Director Stuart Nicholls said in the release.

Consistent with the seismic amplitude model supporting interpreted field boundaries, West Erregulla-2 did not encounter a gas-water contact in the formation, the company said.

“The High Cliff sandstone quality at West Erregulla is comparable to the High Cliff in the Waitsia-1 well which flowed 25 mmscf/d [million standard cubic feet per day] when tested,” Nicholls said. “The High Cliff results are in line with Strike’s expectations and indicate a discovery with significant areal extent that can be delineated on 3-D seismic.”

He described West Erregulla-2 as the deepest well onshore Australia, at 5,100 m, and the deepest well where hydrocarbons have been found.

“The presence of both gas and porosity at such depths add further significant value to the fast evolving Kingia-High Cliff conventional gas fairway within the Perth Basin,” he added.

With West Erregulla-2 drilling complete, additional advanced logging is underway, Strike said.

“Following this the 5 1/2 in. production casing will be run and cemented,” the company said. “A production completion will be run with perforations in the Kingia and High Cliff zones before conducting flow testing.”

Strike Energy serves as operator and holds a 50% joint venture interest in EP469 with Warrego Energy holding the rest.