PLANS to explore “frontier areas” of oil and gas reserves off the south coast have been delayed after licences granted in 2005 were transferred between several British companies.
Scottish-based Plectrum Petroleum originally obtained licences to explore Blocks WA-379-P and WA-380-P in the Bremer Sub-Basin, with Albany considered best placed to benefit by providing a base for company operations.
The area covers 18,730 square kilometres, about 25km to 40km from the coast.
But Plectrum’s plans to start exploration by 2007 were thrown into disarray when it was taken over by another Scottish company, Cairn Energy PLC, a subsidiary of Capricorn Oil & Gas Limited, in September 2007.
The permits have since been transferred to a joint venture of English company Arcadia Petroleum Ltd (90 per cent) and Bermuda-based Enovation Resources (10 per cent).
The WA Government approved the transfer of the exploration permits to Arcadia and Enovation on July 29.
Both have agreed to fulfil the existing permit work program obligations comprising two-dimensional seismic acquisition in the primary term and CSEM surveying and two exploration wells in the secondary term.
Department of Industry and Resources, Petroleum and Royalties director Bill Tinapple said some form of exploration work was expected to start within the next couple of years.
“As a condition of granting the permits, the joint venture must, at a minimum, provide annual reports of its activities to the Department of Industry and Resources and allow the department to review its works program,” Mr Tinapple said.
“The joint venture is required to undertake significant seismic exploration work prior to February 2010.”
The two licences were issued on August 9 by the Commonwealth-Western Australian Offshore Petroleum Joint Authority as part of the 2005 competitive bid round of the Australian Government release of Offshore Exploration Areas.
Plectrum was the only company to offer a bid, proposing a guaranteed work program to acquire 1,800km of new two-dimensional seismic data, seabed sample collections and studies at an estimated cost of $3.36 million.
Geoscience Australia had explored the Bremer Basin’s sea-bed structure, which extends from off Walpole to near Esperance, proving it had the right geology to form and trap oil and gas.
It provided encouraging results from seismic surveying, and sea bed sampling analysis carried out revealed working petroleum systems with high potential for large oil and gas accummulations.
Depths range from one to two kilometres below the surface.
Licences were then granted so further research could be undertaken with exploration to include additional seismic and drilling work.
For the past two decades, Arcadia Petroleum has been trading crude oil, products and oil derivatives in all the world’s major markets.
Based in London, the majority of its suppliers come from the major producing regions of the Middle East, West Africa, CIS and the North Sea.
Their business strategy is to develop long-term supportive business relationships with producer countries providing marketing skills and one worldwide supply network.
Enovation Resources is an independent exploration and production company with a vision to build a portfolio of hydrocarbon resources in the Gulf of Mexico, North Sea and Asia-Pacific regions.