As of Saturday morning the Talisman Energy-operated Siphon-1 well was at a depth of 1923m of its total planned depth of 3783m.

The wet gas prospect in Western Province is about 10 kilometres northeast of the Stanley-1gas condensate discovery held by Horizon Oil and Talisman's PNG subsidiary.

The deviated well targeting the northern flank of the fault-bounded Siphon prospect in PPL 269, which is 50:50 owned by New Guinea Energy and Talisman.

Over at the Southern Highlands province, the Hedinia 10 well was at a depth of 1730m of its total planned depth of 3000m as of yesterday morning.

Targeting a footwall prospect underneath the producing Hedinia oil field, the company aims to emulate the success of the ADT ST3 oil discovery made under the Agogo oil field in late 2009.

The participants of Hedinia 10 are Oil Search (60.05%), Merlin Petroleum, Ampolex/PNG Petroleum, Petroleum Resources Kutubu and Merlin Pacific Oil

Both wells are scheduled for completion within around ten days of each other in September, with results first expected from Hedinia 10.