The past year has seen BPH Energy add to its biotechnology assets with a diversified outlook and exercise its option to invest in an exciting resources exploration company. Following shareholder, ASX and regulatory approval, BPH Energy has acquired 19.06% of unlisted energy explorer Advent Energy Limited. Advent Energy is pursuing its right to earn an 85% interest in Petroleum Exploration Permit 11 (PEP 11), its cornerstone project situated in the offshore Sydney sedimentary Basin. Advent Energy also holds a portfolio of petroleum assets throughout Australia.
Advent Energy announced recently that is has secured the Ocean Patriot semi submersible rig to drill the initial well in PEP 11 later this year. Advent Energy has also announced an increase in its estimated prospective recoverable resources within PEP 11 to 13.2 Tcf (trillion cubic feet) (at the P50 or ‘best estimate’ level). The chosen location for the maiden exploration well in PEP11 is the New Seaclem-1 well, 55 km east of Newcastle, and targeting the Great White and Marlin prospects.
Encouragingly for Advent Energy and its shareholders, the independent site survey contractor’s analysis of pre-drilling site survey data over the primary drilling prospect states that the geological sequence immediately above the interpreted Permo-Triassic unconformity is "likely" to contain zone(s) of gas.
The Ocean Patriot is due to drill two wells in Bass Strait, offshore Victoria for another major operator prior to commencing work for Advent. The exact timing of that two well program is to be determined and it is currently anticipated that the rig will be on that program until the fourth quarter of 2010, before being towed to the New Seaclem-1 location.
BPH Energy’s biomedical research and technology groups are progressing well. Principal researcher Dr Robin Scaife was recently jointly awarded a Scott Kirkbride Melanoma Research Centre grant to pursue screening of compounds for inhibitors of melanoma cell survival and proliferation using Molecular Discovery Systems’ high content imaging and analysis platform.
During the period, Dr Scaife discovered a new class of anti-mitotic drugs that has now undergone extensive development toward pre-clinical testing of anti-cancer activity. Detailed analyses of chemical analogues of the new drug have yielded a new drug that exhibits nearly 1000 times the biological activity of the initial compound derived by MDS’ screening process. The new drug has also undergone animal testing to rule out adverse toxic side effects and is primed for pre-clinical testing of anti-tumour activity.
Cortical Dynamics’ work has recently been published in the journal of Anesthesiology, entitled Propofol and Remifentanil Differentially Modulate Frontal Electroencephalographic Activity. The Cortical Dynamics team is developing this unique and patented depth of anaesthesia monitoring system for use during major surgery.
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