Australia offers 21 new offshore exploration areas in 2017

Australia has released 21 new offshore petroleum exploration areas in 2017.

The Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Matt Canavan has revealed the latest offshore petroleum exploration areas at the 2017 APPEA Conference in Perth.

The majority of the 2017 Release Areas are located along Australia’s North West Shelf, spanning the Westralian Superbasin from the Bonaparte Basin in the northeast to the Northern Carnarvon Basin in the southwest.

These are balanced by five Release Areas in the basins near the Bass Strait offshore from southeast Australia, and by two offshore frontier areas in the Houtman Sub-basin of the northern Perth Basin.

Following the award of one cash-bid area in the 2016 bidding round, one new area has been offered for cash-bidding in the Dampier Sub-basin.

Speaking at the annual Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) conference in Perth, Canavan said the release supported the Government’s action to strengthen domestic gas supply by making new areas available for oil and gas exploration.

“There are 20 areas available for work program bidding, where petroleum companies need to submit comprehensive exploration plans, across a mixture of mature and lightly explored basins. A further area open for cash bidding is located in the highly prospective Dampier Sub-Basin of WA’s Northern Carnarvon Basin,” Minister Canavan said.

“Following strong bidding on round 2 of the 2016 acreage release, I hope to see this momentum continue to this year’s release.

“The Government is committed to strengthening the East Coast gas market and has released five areas that are located close to existing infrastructure and fields in the Bass Strait.”

Geoscience Australia (GA), country’s public sector geoscience organization, stated that, in order to attract robust industry participation in the bidding process, the selected released areas reflected geological and geographical diversity to cater the full scope of petroleum exploration companies.

The organization supports industry exploration activities by acquiring, interpreting, and integrating pre-competitive datasets that are made freely available as part of the agency’s regional petroleum geological studies.

GA added that a new regional 2D seismic survey was acquired in the Houtman Sub-basin of the Perth Basin, forming the basis of the latest prospectivity study carried out by the organization. The results of the study will be presented as part of the technical program at the 2017 APPEA conference.