Great news that IronBark-1 has spudded, always an achievement getting these things consented and over the line. No matter what happens from here BP have done well, I think it is their first Australian operated exploration well for about 10 years so well done to Cue for sticking with farming it out for so long. First granted to Cue in 2012, so credit to Cue as well, got to admire their hustle.
Always exciting and wish all the best but just remember Ironbark-1 is significantly deeper North Rankin and Gorgon gas condensate fields and so has significant chance that reservoir quality is impacted with reduced porosity and permeability. I suspect this could well delay the results of the drill, as further research will be needed.
So while Ironbark-1 has it risks it is always good to finish on a high note. Australia has pretty thorough worst case planning outlines in their environmental drilling plans. They are always a good read as the engineers look at a worst case blow out scenarios. Conveniently for shareholders you can all think of this as a best case scenario (not the blow out but the flow rates).
Of course you wont see these rates as the choke and drill string thin greatly by the time you get to reservoir and is no where near 12 inch hole but shows that in a best case these reservoirs can really deliver.
They used the Goodwyn gas field as the closest to Ironbark-1 and came out with:
" Assuming that the well is flowing through unobstructed 12 ¼” open hole and 13 5/8” casing string, it is estimated that the initial flowrate is 91,793bbl/day (condensate rate), 11,504bbl/day (water rate) and 1,541MMscf/day (gas rate)."
Taken from page 28 of
https://www.bp.com/content/dam/bp/co...nment-plan.pdf
Maui-2 first flowed at 40MMscf/d.