New Zealand Energy Corp. has made its sixth oil discovery in the Taranaki Basin of New Zealand's North Island.

NZEC commenced testing the Arakamu-2 well in mid-March and swab tested two intervals for a total of 13 days. The well demonstrated strong inflow of oil, gas and water with the oil cut increasing, averaging more than 20% over the last three days of swab testing. The well has produced a total of 407 barrels of 42° API oil to date. As a result of the well producing both oil and water artificial lift is required, and the well is currently shut in pending installation of artificial lift.

The Arakamu-2 well was drilled to a measured depth of 2,380 metres (1,870 metres true vertical depth) and encountered approximately 18 metres of net pay over two separate intervals in the Mt. Messenger Formation. Perforation of the upper interval demonstrated good inflow but sand entered the wellbore and the tubing string and perforating gun became stuck. Following extensive workover operations the tubing string and perforating gun were successfully recovered.

Tags: New Zealand Energy Corp.