Project Profile
Value: US$54 million (term 1)
Location: Otway basin, onshore South Australia
Area: 5,800 sq km
Licence award: September 2013
Licence expiry: September 2022
Term 1 Duration: 5 years
Start-up Year: -
Northern Petroleum has been awarded a 5,800 square kilometre shale oil licence onshore South Australia’s Otway basin. The new block fitted the explorer’s unconventional strategy of targeting low-entry cost blocks for future farm-out potential. The area is home to five gas fields with significant amounts of condensate, but is otherwise little explored. Only five stratigraphically deep exploration wells have been drilled within the licence and 4,468 line kilometres of 2D seismic data recorded. Twenty-two wells have been drilled altogether on the new licence, which comprises partial relinquishments from PELs 82, 154, 155, 186 and full relinquishment of PEL 187. The PEL 629 licence also holds conventional prospectivity but Northern Petroleum plans to focus on the unconventional potential of the Late Jurassic to Early Cretaceous Casterton and Sawpit formations. Its first activities on the licence will see geochemical analysis, seismic reprocessing and log processing to help evaluate potential unconventional shale sequences for light oil, condensate and gas potential.
Work programme for Term One includes 7 wells, 250 km² new 3D, and 3000km 2D reprocessing.
Operators:
Cabot Energy (previously known as Northern Petroleum): Operator with 75% interest
High Power Petroleum: 25% interest