Beach to treble oil output by 2007 [29apr06]

BEACH Petroleum's Bass Strait oil project has pushed it to record oil production in the March quarter, and there's more good news to come.

The Basker Manta Gummy project helped push Beach to record oil production of 483,000 barrels, up 41 per cent on the previous record production - in the December quarter.

Beach's half share of the BMG project delivered 325,000 barrels of that total, with the field not expected to reach full production of about 25,000 barrels per day until October.

Oil sales for the March quarter more than doubled to a record 551,000 barrels with an average net oil price of $87.62, up 9 per cent, delivering record quarterly revenue of $48.3 million.

"The fact that Basker, in its first full reporting period, immediately contributes just over half our total production underpins the value of our current strategy to spread our future performance profile and risk over a larger number of assets," Beach managing director Mr Reg Nelson said.









"The immediate success of the first stage of Basker positions Beach is on track to treble our production, in line with previous market forecasts, to in excess of three million barrels in 2007."

Beach said development drilling had started on its 40-per-cent-owned Tipton West coal-seam gas project in Queensland with first gas sales expected in early 2007.

Since March Beach has made two oil discoveries, Harpoono-2 and Silver Sands-1 in South Australia.