Quadrant Energy has agreed a contract with Transocean to drill the Phoenix South-3 well in the WA-435-P exploration permit on the North-West Shelf of Australia.
Drilling is due to start between 1 February and 1 April 2018 using the GSF Development Driller-1, a sixth generation semisubmersible, says partner Carnarvon.
The well is a redrill of the Phoenix South-2 well that discovered gas and condensate at the top of the Caley interval, but was unable to drill through and evaluate due to high pressures encountered.
The Phoenix South Caley structure is estimated to contain 489 Bcf gas and 57 MMbbl associated condensate gross mean recoverable prospective resource, or 143 MMboe in total.
"The estimated condensate-to-gas ratio is very significant and is based on surface gas sampling from a permeable section at the top of the Caley Sandstone encountered while drilling the Phoenix South-2 well," says Carnarvon.
The well is in about 100m water depth, approximately 160km northeast of Port Hedland in the Bedout sub-basin of the greater Roebuck basin.
Quadrant and Carnarvon are jointly exploring the neighboring Phoenix and Roc licenses. The firms are expected to drill the Dorado prospect, 15km from the Roc discovery later this year. Additional resources on Dorado will at to the Phoenix and Roc resources and a potential development project.