Canada’s Bengal Energy Ltd. and its joint venture (JV) parties began the 2016 drilling campaign on ATP 752 Barta Block in Australia’s Cooper Basin, the company said July 26.

Bengal's working interest is 30.357%.

The program consists of five wells within Petroleum Lease 303 at the Cuisinier Field, comprised of four development/appraisal locations and one near-field exploration well.

Three of the development wells are located in the central/south part of the Cuisinier Field area, primarily targeting the Murta DC70 Sandstone and directly offsetting Murta oil producers. One development well will be drilled deeper to test the Jurassic Hutton Sandstone south of the Cocinero Hutton oil wells and offsetting Cuisinier 20, which had a Hutton oil show.

The fourth development/appraisal well, Cuisinier 22, sits about 790 meters (m) north of the Cuisinier North-1 well, a Murta oil well drilled in 2012. Bengal said that 3-D seismic mapping indicates that the well will encounter the Murta about 13 m above the lowest known oil within the Cuisinier structure on the Murta Sandstone trend.

The near-field exploration well, Shefu-1, might confirm a westerly extension of the Cuisinier pool. The well is mapped on 3-D seismic to encounter the Murta Sandstone. Bengal said that Shefu-1 will be the fourth well in this campaign, and will also test the Birkhead/Hutton Formation where a four-way structural closure was mapped.

The five wells will be drilled back-to-back in the program, which will probably last about two and a half months, Bengal said. Completions and tie-ins are scheduled to take place either in late fourth-quarter 2016 or early first-quarter 2017, and all of the wells are scheduled to be on production in first-quarter 2017.

Bengal also said that began a farm-out process with large petroleum companies for the funding of the next phase of exploring ATP 934, an area surrounded by gas fields that have produced 126.1 billion cubic feet of natural gas and liquids as of June 2015. No wells have been drilled on ATP 934.

Bengal holds a 71.43% and operatorship in the ATP 934 Permit, while its JV partner holds the balance of 28.57%.