Georgina Energy has started water well drilling and site preparation for the Hussar prospect in Western Australia's Officer Basin, readying the pad for conductor pipe work ahead of a rig move onto the site. The company said its September 2026 spud date for the Hussar well remains on target.
Civil engineering contractors are completing the pre-drill site works, including water well drilling and conductor pipe drilling, for the Q3 program at Hussar, part of Georgina Energy's upstream exploration work in the Officer Basin. The works are meant to ready the site for the contracted Ensign 970 drill rig.
Site prep sequence
Water well drilling is underway to supply water for the rig. Some of that water will go into drilling fluid, and a portion will be treated with reverse osmosis for washing and cooking on site. Once the water well is finished, the rig will move toward the center of the drilling pad to drill and set a 20 inch conductor pipe, a large-diameter pipe set near the surface to stabilize the top of the well before deeper drilling begins.
Civil engineers have also advanced work on the Turkey's Nest, a water storage pond, and a sump to hold drill cuttings and excess drilling fluid. The cellar, where the conductor pipe and wellhead will be set, is due to be dug before conductor pipe drilling and cementing.
What the well is targeting
The Hussar EP513 prospect covers 300 km² of areal closure in Exploration Permit 513. Georgina Energy said it ranks among the largest subsalt helium, hydrogen and hydrocarbon prospects onshore Australia that has not yet been drilled. The well targets subsalt reservoirs, including the Townsend Formation and fractured Neoproterozoic basement rock, to a planned total depth of about 3,200 meters, which the company said could be extended depending on gas occurrences and reservoir quality. A secondary target, the Kanpa and Hussar formations above the subsalt zone, showed strong porosity and hydrocarbon shows in earlier drilling but has not been fully tested.
Georgina Energy compared the target to the Bach Ho field, a fractured basement gas field offshore Vietnam that produced as much as 1.6 billion cubic feet of gas equivalent a day at its peak and has been in continuous production for more than 40 years.
Resource estimate
A geological report dated 1 February 2026 by competent person Maki Petkovski put Hussar's unrisked 2U prospective resources, under SPE PRMS standards, at 283 billion cubic feet of helium, 315 billion cubic feet of hydrogen and 2.93 trillion cubic feet of hydrocarbon gas. Using prices of US$450 per thousand cubic feet for helium, US$2.65 per kilogram for hydrogen and US$8 per thousand cubic feet for hydrocarbon gas, Georgina Energy put the combined in-situ value of those volumes at about US$152 billion. The company based that figure on pricing from the Australian Energy Regulator and the Helium Price Index, and said the estimate excludes the costs of producing, separating and transporting the resource to market.
Chief executive Anthony Hamilton said the site work is progress toward mobilizing the Ensign 970 rig and that the company remains "on track for the planned September spud date."
