New offshore blocks for Tap Oil (Australia)

Australia’s Tap Oil has been awarded 100% of Blocks W14-7 and W14-16 in the prospective Barrow and Dampier sub-basins on the North West Shelf offered under the 2014 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release.

W14-07, now Petroleum Exploration Permit WA-515-P, is located on the Rankin Platform in water depths ranging from less than 100 metres to 400 metres and covers an area of approximately 485km2 (6 graticular blocks).

The permit lies between the Wheatstone gas field to the west and the Goodwyn/Perseus gas fields to the east. W14-16, now Petroleum Exploration Permit WA-516-P, is located to the east of the Alpha Arch on the western flank of the Barrow sub-basin and is adjacent to other Tap held acreage.

The permit is in water depths of between 50 metres to 200 metres and covers an area of approximately 160km2 (2 graticular blocks).

The permit lies between the Griffin, Chinook/Scindian fields and the Woollybutt Oil Field. Tap has agreed to a three year work program comprising of reprocessing open file 3D seismic or licensing existing multi-client reprocessed 3D data, Quantitative Interpretation studies and G&G studies (at an indicated estimated expenditure of approximately $0.8 million per permit).

Each three year work program runs from 6 March 2015 through to 5 March 2018. The majority of these funds are anticipated being spent from 2016 onwards. The optional secondary work program comprises 3D seismic acquisition in Year 4 and a well in Year 6.