Central Petroleum Ltd's Board approved the first stage of development of the Surprise discovery. The approval followed 6 months of detailed internal and external studies which concluded that Surprise West should be developed independently of Surprise East, which will be developed in 2 stages.

The development of Surprise West Stage 1 has been estimated to take approximately 3 months to complete. The work will include the re-entry of Surprise #1, for pump installation and the construction of a Production Facility to increase the present capacity to 5,000 barrels of oil storage with 2,000 barrels of water separation capacity. The economics indicated the $5 million capital will be paid back within around 9 months.

Tags: Central Petroleum Limited