With the Strickland-1 well suffering a number of downhole issues, Oil Search (50% and operator) and ExxonMobil (50%) have mobilised a second drilling crew to keep the Muruk-1 well schedule on track.

A well pad has been completed in the northwest Highlands, and a rig has been mobilised to the location, which sits north-east of Juha and Juha North and on trend with the Hides field.

Originally planned to spud in the first quarter, Muruk-1 is a multi-trillion cubic feet potential prospect that could be tied into the existing PNG LNG infrastructure if successful.

While in a challenging location, at an elevation of more than 3000m, the well is only 21km north-west of the Hides G1 wellpad.

Subject to weather and rig crew assembly, the well is expected to start drilling in November.

Strickland-2/ST3 is still drilling ahead to the target Early Cretaceous Toro Sandstone reservoir, having successfully drilled through the unstable section of strata in a fault zone on its third try.

Also on Oil Search's drilling calendar are the Antelope-7 (22.28%) and P'nyang South-2 (38.5%) appraisal wells and the Kalangar-1 exploration well (70%) with minnow Kina Petroleum.

Rig HA115 is rigging up in the Gulf province, south-west of Antelope-5, to test the poorly defined western flank of the field. Antelope-7 has been designed to be deepened test the Antelope Deep carbonate exploration target in the event of encouragement.

Antelope-7 could add more than 1Tcf to reserves and is expected to spud within weeks.

P'nyang South-2 and Kalangar-1 are planned for drilling in the first half of next year.

P'nyang-2 is aiming at reclassifying the existing 2C resource to 1C resource, to support potential LNG expansion.

Oil Search says there is between 6-10Tcf of 2C gas across Elk-Antelope and P'nyang, enough to underpin at least 8MMtpa of additional LNG production across two new trains, and to support financing and marketing activities.

Contingent appraisal wells being considered include Barikewa-3 (45.1%), Kimu West-1 (60.7%) and Uramu-2 (100%).

Kimu West-1 is likely to be drilled in the event the reprocessed historical seismic supports the well, while there is a new prospect shaping up at Kimu North.

The Kalangar prospect, which is on-trend with the Antelope field, has the potential to open up an important and new prospective trend in the Gulf province, and location scouting has been completed to define a well location.

Seismic data acquired earlier in the year in the PRL 3, PPL 395 and PPL 464 licences was processed and interpreted during the last quarter, with encouraging results.

Further data acquisition is being considered for 2017.