About Tap Oil

Tap Oil Limited (Tap or the company) is an oil and gas exploration and production company with interests on the North West Shelf of offshore Western Australia and New Zealand. Tap's main production assets at this stage is its 12.22% interest in the Harriet Group of oil and gas fields and a 15% interest in the Woollybutt oil field both located offshore in the Carnarvon Basin. These oil and gas fields are centered around the Varanus Island production infrastructure hub, an important strategic facility to Tap. The Varanus hub comprises substantial facilities to process both oil and gas for export. The Harriet group of fields oil production is piped to the island, processed, stored and then offloaded into tankers on a regular basis. Gas produced by the Harriet Group of fields is also piped to the island, processed through two gas trains and then exported to industrial and domestic customers via two pipelines to Compressor Station #1. CS1 is located at the juncture of the Dampier to Bunbury Natural Gas Pipeline and the Goldfields Gas Transmission Pipeline. Harriet gas is exported down both of these pipelines. In addition, Tap has participated in the following discoveries since listing; A 100% interest in the Cyrano Oil and Gas Field in EP 364 in the Carnarvon Basin; A 10% interest in the Corvus Gas Field in WA-246-P in the Carnarvon Basin; A 10% interest in the Tusk Oil Field in WA-246-P in the Carnarvon Basin; A 12% interest in the Prometheus, Saratoga and Rubicon Gas Fields in the Bonaparte Basin; and a 30% interest in the Kahili Gas and Condensate Field in the Taranaki Basin of New Zealand. The Taranaki Basin Drilling activity in the Taranaki Basin has been historically low with an average of 5 wells per year since 1996. This compares to 57 wells per year for the Carnarvon Basin over the same period (of which 14 wells per year are in various Tap joint ventures). Notwithstanding the low drilling activity in the Taranaki basin its prospectivity speaks for itself with around 455 mmbbls of oil and condensate and 7TCF of gas reserves having been discovered to date. Drilling The first well in Tap's New Zealand exploration programme has now been completed. Kahili-1A was drilled to a measured depth of 2,962m, however, the well penetrated the east-bounding thrust fault immediately above the top Tariki sandstone reservoir target. Kahili-1B was then sidetracked towards the southwest and penetrated the Tariki sandstone at a measured depth of 2,817m MD (2,465m vertical depth subsea). A gross 210m of sandstone and minor siltstones were penetrated before intersecting the bounding fault at a depth of 3,027.5m MD (2,868m vertical depth). Elevated gas readings were recorded throughout this interval. The Wawiri-1 and Bluff-1 wells have been approved for drilling in the 3rd quarter 2003, in the PEP38753 and PEP38746 blocks. They involve testing shallow Mt.Messenger sand targets with strong seismic amplitude anomalies. Wawiri-1 is favourably located being 10 Kilometres to the north-northeast of the Waihapa oil production facilities, and Bluff-1 is located in the South of the permit on 3D seismic that extends over the adjacent McKee oil field. Offshore Canterbury Basin Tap has been awarded a 50% interest and operatorship of new exploration permit PEP 38259. The permit is located in the Canterbury Basin, offshore from Dunedin on the east coast of South Island. PEP 38259 is a large offshore permit, compromising an area of approximately 6,648 square kilometres. The Canterbury Basin has been lightly explored although the Galleon-1 well, drilled within the permit area in 1985, encountered a 21 metre gas condensate column that flowed at rates up to 10 million cubic feet of gas per day, with associated condensate of 2,240 barrels per day. Other larger prospects have been mapped nearby to the Galleon-1 well, which have the potential for substantial gas/condensate and oil discoveries.