Last year’s darling of the oil world Carnarvon Petroleum (ASX:CVN) says its second Dorado well is confirming 2018’s blockbuster discovery in north WA.

“Results from the LWD [logging while drilling] tools indicate that similar reservoirs have been encountered to those in the Dorado-1 discovery,” the company said today.

Initial results suggest “porous and permeable zones with indications of hydrocarbons” as expected in the Caley, Baxter and Milne members.

Carnarvon hit the headlines in July 2018 after finding what is widely suspected to be the largest oil find ever on Australia’s North-West Shelf.

Dorado is part of Carnarvon’s broader Phoenix project in the Bedout sub-basin, which is about 250km north of Port Hedland on WA’s north-west coast.

The Phoenix project consists of the Roc, Dorado and Phoenix South discoveries, of which Carnavon owns between 20-30 per cent.

Carnarvon's Dorado well is part of its Phoenix project 250km north of Port Hedland. Map: Carnarvon
Carnarvon’s Dorado well is part of its Phoenix project 250km north of Port Hedland. Map: Carnarvon

The Dorado-2 well is the first appraisal well of the field and it has another 48m to drill to hit the 4,548m target.

“Dorado-1 is less than 20km from the Roc discovery which flowed 55 mmscf/d [thousand standard cubic feet] and 3000 bbld/day,” Carnarvon said in April 2018.

“The Dorado structure at the Caley interval is estimated to contain a gross mean recoverable prospective resource of 545 Bscf of gas and 30 million barrels of associated condensate.”

Typically “reserves” refer to oil or gas discoveries that are commercially recoverable using existing technology, while “resources” are either not yet commercially viable or are mere speculation.

Carnarvon is the operator of the field but its major partner in the joint venture is Santos (ASX:STO) after it bought out Quadrant Energy last year.

Today Carnarvon shares bounced as high as 46c before dipping back to 44.5c, which was still up 6 per cent on Tuesday’s closing price.