Beach Energy Completes Holdfast-1 Well Drilling

Beach Energy has completed drilling the Holdfast-1 well in the PEL 218 area of Cooper Basin, Australia, and has intersected the target zone at 353m.

The firm conducted extensive coring at Holdfast-1, with over 350m of the target shale sequence and adjacent strata recovered.

Beach is conducting a thorough evaluation on core from the Encounter-1 well, which intersected a thicker sequence of shale than initially predicted.

The Encounter-1 and Holdfast-1 wells are due to be fracture-stimulated with up to eight fraccing intervals in May 2011.

The wells will then be flow tested, which, along with the core analysis, is expected to result in a resource addition for both wells in the third quarter of the year.