Australia: Blue Energy Picks Up Shale Gas and Oil Acreage

Blue Energy of Australia announced that its wholly owned subsidiary, Eureka Petroleum, has been successful in securing 3 large exploration blocks in the Queensland sector of the Georgina Basin, together with a 4th exploration block in the Carpentaria Basin in northern Queensland.

The Queensland Government has posted the results of the 2011 Gazettal Acreage bid round on its Interactive Resource Tenure Management website (IRTM) and identifies Eureka Petroleum as preferred tenderer for 4 permits.

The Georgina Basin blocks secured by Blue Energy cover an area of approximately 5,630,000 acres (22,788km2) whilst the Carpentaria Basin block is approximately 2,098,000 acres (8,490km2) in area. At this stage Blue Energy holds these applications 100%.

Native Title Agreements and Environmental Authorities will be required before the permits can be granted by the Qld government, and Blue Energy intends to commence the processes for obtaining these as soon as possible to facilitate award.

The Georgina Basin has been sparsely explored to date, with efforts so far focussed on conventional/structural hydrocarbon plays in the middle Cambrian to Ordovician aged sequence present within the basin. More recently, the Cambrian aged Arthur Creek Formation which is a thick organic rich deep water marine source rock sequence, has been the target of renewed exploration in the Northern Territory portion of the Georgina Basin. The Arthur Creek Formation represents a potentially enormous unconventional hydrocarbon play.

Central Petroleum, Petrofrontier, Armour Energy and Australian Oil and Gas Ltd are among active operators with adjacent acreage to Blue Energy’s Georgina Basin permits.

Commenting on the Company’s success in the Government’s acreage bid round, Blue Energy’s newly appointed Exploration Director, John Ellice-Flint, said “that securing such a large acreage position at this early stage of exploration in the Georgina Basin positions Blue Energy ideally to take advantage of the high demand by global energy players for unconventional hydrocarbon acreage.” “I expect the entry into Australia of the large multinational oil and gas companies seeking unconventional exploration acreage to continue, especially given Australia’s favourable fiscal regime, the large acreage positions available and the demonstrated prospectivity of the large under-explored sedimentary basins that this nation possesses,” Mr Ellice-Flint said.

“The new acreage is a further timely boost to Blue Energy’s already significant licence areas in Queensland, including continued progress with the development of our coal seam gas and shale projects in this State,” he said.

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LNG World News Staff, May 24, 2012