Newly formed private Perth company Tanami Energy Pty. Ltd. has emerged as the buyer of fellow Perth company Tap Oil Ltd.’s 20% interest in the undeveloped Amulet oil discovery in Carnarvon basin licence WA-8-L offshore Western Australia.
The interest has changed hands for $800,000 (Aus.) in cash.
Tanami was founded in 2016 by Joseph Graham, a Western Australian petroleum engineer with a number of years of global experience. One of the nonexecutive directors is Ted Jacobsen, a co-founder of Tap Oil during the 1980s.
WA-8-L is a production licence originally granted in 1988 for the Marathon Oil Corp.-led joint venture to develop Talisman oil field in the Dampier sub-basin. Talisman produced a total of 7.7 million bbl of high-quality oil and was depleted by 1992.
Tap Oil discovered Amulet field in May 2006 about 4 km east of Talisman and determined to be a separate field. The production licence was renewed for another 21 years in 2010.
The field contains two successful appraisal wells, but commercial viability has remained problematic during the downturn in world oil prices.
The field lies in 80-85 m of water and contains an estimated 2C reserve of 7 million bbl. It is about 30 km south east of the Santos Ltd. group’s producing Finucane South and Fletcher oil field’s floating production, storage, and offloading vessel and there are hopes of a development at Amulet to tie into this facility.
Tap Oil’s sale is in line with its strategy of realizing value from its noncore assets. The sale is conditional of government approvals and Tanami complying with requirements of the permit JV’s operating agreement and other relevant regulations.
The sale agreement will lapse if these conditions are not met within 90 days.
Other interest holders in WA-8-L are Santos with 37.34% and Kufpec with 42.63%.
