The hydrocarbon potential of the 2015 Offshore Acreage Release Areas for petroleum exploration

Abstract

The Australian Government formally releases new offshore exploration areas at the annual APPEA conference. These areas are located across various offshore hydrocarbon provinces ranging from mature basins with ongoing oil and gas production to exploration frontiers. A total of 23 areas are released for work-program bidding and six areas for cash bidding (Fig. 1). The two work-program bidding rounds will remain open until 29 October 2015 and 21 April 2016, respectively, while cash bid submissions will close on 4 February 2016. The 2015 Release Areas are located in 13 distinct geological provinces across eight basins and all were supported by industry nominations. Six areas are located in the Bonaparte Basin, two of which are cash bid areas over the Turtle/Barnett oil accumulations. In the Browse Basin, three areas in the Caswell Sub-basin and one area on the Yampi Shelf are released. In support of recent exploration activities and success, one large area has been gazetted in the central Roebuck Basin. The Northern Carnarvon Basin offering comprises 11 areas on the Exmouth Plateau and in the Dampier Sub-basin, including four for cash bidding. This year, the usual predominance of North West Shelf Release Areas is counterbalanced by seven large areas in the Bight, Otway, Sorell and Gippsland basins. This includes one area in the Ceduna Sub-basin, three areas in the deepwater Otway Basin, one area in the northern Sorell Basin and two areas in the southeastern Gippsland Basin. The nominations received for these areas highlights the industry’s interest in evaluating the hydrocarbon potential of Australia’s underexplored southern margin. Geoscience Australia continues to support industry activities by acquiring, interpreting and integrating pre-competitive datasets that are made freely available as part of the agency’s regional petroleum geological studies.