Project Profile
Value: Undisclosed
Location: Caswell Sub-basin portion of the Browse Basin, offshore Western Australia
Reserves: 28.8 million barrels of oil (contingent resources)
Production: Unknown
Area: 1,755 km2
Depth: Unknown
Start-up Year: -
WA-54-R is located in the Caswell Sub-basin of the Browse Basin, offshore from Western Australia, and covers an area of approximately 497 km2. It was carved out of the larger WA-342-P permit as a retention permit granted in May 2014 for five years. It incorporates the Cornea oil and gas deposits, or Greater Cornea Fields, comprising Cornea (Central and South), Focus, Sparkle, and Cornea North (Tear) Gas FIeld. The licence has a best pre-drill (P50) estimate of 28.8 million barrels of contingent oil resources, and 411 million barrels of oil-in place. The operating consortium plans to conduct a production test program in 2018 to determine the field’s productivity and support the formulation of a development plan.
Production uncertainty is considered a major barrier to development at the Greater Cornea Fields, and the operating consortium based their work programme around circumventing these hurdles. With the onslaught of low oil prices, however, the JV now believes economic uncertainty could undermine the chances of success at Greater Cornea.
Following the Cornea-1 oil and gas discovery well, drilled by Shell in 1997 on the Cornea Central closure, a further nine exploration and appraisal wells penetrated the greater Cornea closure. A gas cap with a 12m oil rim was discovered in the Cornea South closure and Tear-1 clipped the edge of a gas cap with no oil rim in the Cornea North closure. An additional five exploration wells were drilled on similar basement drape closures, situated to the immediate east of the Cornea Field, two of them discovering oil (in Focus-1 and Sparkle-1) in the same Middle Albian shallow marine sandstone reservoir as the oil and gas discoveries in the Cornea Field. However, neither these nor the Cornea closures were deemed to be commercially viable when the relevant exploration permits were relinquished in 1999.
The Cornea-1 oil and gas discovery well, as well as the Cornea-1B and 2 wells, were drilled on an unfaulted drape anticline over a basement high and discovered a 25m gas column and a 22.2m oil column in the Albian sandstones of the Jamieson Formation, with 22 to 24 degree API oil derived from Early Cretaceous, Echuca Shoals Formation and possibly Late Jurassic source rocks in the Heywood Graben .Energex holds a 22.375% interest in WA-54 and the Operator of the permit and of the Joint Venture is Hawkestone Oil Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Exoi
Cornea Resources Pty Ltd (subsidiary of Exoil Limited) : 13.100% interest (Operator)
Energex: 14.875% interest
Octanex Group: 18.75% interest
Cornea Oil & Gas Pty Ltd (subsidiary of Australian Oil & Gas Corporation): 17.00% interest
Cornea Petroleum Pty Ltd (subsidiary of Batavia Oil & Gas Pty Ltd) : 14.875% interest
Moby Oil & Gas - 7.5%
Coldron Pty Ltd (subsidiary of Gascorp Australia Pty Ltd) : 7.500% interest
Auralandia N.L: 6.4000% interest