TAG Oil Ltd. (TSX: T.TAO, Stock Forum) said exploration success has continued in the 100% owned Sidewinder oil and gas field with the drilling and completion of the Sidewinder-A5 and Sidewinder-A6 step-out wells in New Zealand.
Sidewinder is a new field discovery situated in the main Taranaki production fairway and is lightly explored.
According to the Tag Oil press release, both wells, drilled to a 2,000 metre depth, encountered reservoir sands consistent with the original four Sidewinder discovery wells within the Mt. Messenger Formation.
In September 2010, TAG announced the first discovery in the Sidewinder-1 exploration well, which was drilled to 1,601 metres. The well encountered 14 metres of net oil-and-gas-bearing sandstones with excellent reservoir porosities and permeability.
A 10-day production test recorded stabilized flow rates of 1,461 barrels of oil equivalent per day, consisting of 8.5 million cubic feet of gas and 44 barrels of oil per day.
TAG is now drilling the Sidewinder-A7 step-out with Sidewinder-A8 to follow.
Based on drilling results to date, including permit-wide 2D and 3D seismic data, TAG believes that the Sidewinder permit has excellent future exploration potential and plans to pursue opportunities in both the shallow and more importantly the high impact Kapuni Formation prospects.
TAG is a production and exploration company with operations focused exclusively in New Zealand.
On Tuesday, TAG was up 0.24% and was trading at $4.26 a share. The company had a market cap of $254.1 million, based on 59.6 million shares outstanding. The 52-week high and low was $11.12 and $3.32 respectively.