Bass Oil officially cites mid-October as final date for Kiwi-1 production test – a well first drilled 21 years ago

Bass Oil (ASX:BAS) shareholders were relieved on Monday when the company said its Kiwi-1 extended production test (EPT) is set for October 18 – shares were up +10% to 7.7cps in the second hour of trade.

Bass Oil has repeatedly announced updates on the ETP through the calendar year going back to March 2024 when project approvals were confirmed.

Kiwi-1 was originally drilled in 2003 and clocked a flow test rate of 9.6Mcfpd of gas in drill stem testing. Bass is hoping it can replicate those results in an ETP 21 years later; the geological age of that result was determined to be Triassic.

Should it be successful in proving there’s gas underground, the microcap believes it has a fair shot at cracking its way into the east coast gas supply chain. Beach Energy on Monday reported its internal calculations suggesting supply will fall -30% by the early 2030’s on current levels.

Despite those claims being contested in some quarters of Australia’s energy ecosystem, Bass MD Tino Guglielmo pointed at the same prediction on Monday – and with the population steadily increasing, increased demand is guaranteed.

“A success at Kiwi will be highly value accretive to Bass proving up the Company’s first gas reserves at a time of elevated pricing due to predicted Eastern Gas Market shortages,” Guglielmo said.

“This test will confirm the commerciality of this important gas discovery.”

BAS last traded at 7.7cps.