Strike managing director David Wrench said the preliminary results from Le Chiffre confirmed the presence of an extensive, gas-saturated coal system in PEL 96 – exceeding the company’s pre-drill expectations.

“We now look forward to completing the drilling program and commencing pilot production testing in 2014,” he said.

“If productivity testing is successful, the project will be on track to meet our objectives of being a low-cost, independent gas producer in time to supply the emerging eastern Australian gas market shortfall.”

The next move for Strike, during Q1 2014, will be to analyse the data obtained from the current drilling program and flow testing to finalise the design of an initial pilot testing program anticipated to be undertaken in Q2 2014.

Le Chiffre 1 was drilled to 2089m and has been cased using premium casing, which will enable the well to be fracture stimulated and flow tested.

The drilling rig was released on December 11. It was immediately rigged down and moved to the Klebb 1 location within the southern Cooper basin project area.

The company reported in excess of 105m of coal encountered in Le Chiffre 1, of which 86m was cored and recovered.

In particular, a 70m gross pay (interpreted 46m net coal) interval was observed in the primary target Patchawarra formation at 1905-2000m.

The high pay thickness within a 95m interval, according to Strike, allowed for the design and implementation of a simpler and more cost effective fracture stimulation program than had previously been envisioned.

Elevated gas readings were recorded across all coal intervals with gas concentration increasing with depth.

The company said preliminary analysis of the coal samples obtained showed they were in the peak gas-generation window for inertinite-rich coals – consistent with observations the coals had very low water content and were gas saturated, with free gas present in coal pores.

In other news from Strike, Klebb 1 spudded earlier this week and was currently setting intermediate casing at 960m, prior to being drilled to a proposed total depth of about 2126m.

Following Klebb 1 being drilled to its total depth and an extensive suite of logs ran, including formation productivity testing and side wall coring, the well will then be cased and suspended pending completion and production testing in 2014.

Klebb 1 is strategically located 105km south/southwest of Moomba and 4km west of the Moomba-Adelaide Pipeline.