Canada's TAG Oil Ltd. has commenced drilling operations at the Company’s 100 percent-controlled Waitangi Valley-1 exploration well in Petroleum Exploration Permit 38348, located in New Zealand’s East Coast Basin. The Waitangi Valley-1 well was spud July 23 and will be drilled to a total depth of approximately 11,800 feet (3,600 meters).

Waitangi Valley-1 is situated 155 miles (250 kilometers) north of TAG’s Ngapaeruru-1 unconventional well, and is the Company’s second high impact exploration well targeting the Waipawa Black Shale and Whangai Formation source rocks. Waitangi Valley-1 is interpreted with proprietary seismic data to potentially intersect stacked, repeated sections of these naturally fractured, over-pressured oil-and-gas-rich source rocks as well as conventional oil and gas bearing sands in the Miocene section at depths between 155 to 1,242 miles (250 to 2000 meters).

Tags: TAG Oil Ltd.