Coogee ready to develop Timor Sea field

May 3, 2007
Coogee Resources Pty. Ltd. has brought in investment house Babcock & Brown as a major shareholder as part of a debt and equity package to fund first-phase development of Montara oil field in the Timor Sea.

Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent

MELBOURNE, May 3 -- Private Perth firm Coogee Resources Pty. Ltd. has brought in investment house Babcock & Brown as a major shareholder as part of a debt and equity package to fund first-phase development of Montara oil field in the Timor Sea.

Last year Coogee had been forced to abandon a $380 million (Aus.) float after adverse oil price movements deterred major institutional investors.

Montara again is on track to begin oil production of 38,000 b/d in third-quarter 2008, and Babcock & Brown will become a large shareholder in Coogee.

Funding will include a secured $270 million (Aus.) debt from a three-bank syndicate, a finance lease for the project's floating production, storage, and offloading vessel, and the equity package. It also will support a 4-year, 11-well exploration drilling program due to start in November with the spud of Sea Eagle-1 in the AC/P34 permit.

Coogee also is looking at a floating gas-to-methanol facility for its stranded gas reserves in the Timor Sea, estimated to be 830 bcf, as well the stranded gas resources of other operators in the region.

The Montara project includes Montara, Skua, and Swift-Swallow oil fields having proved and probable oil reserves of 36.9 million bbl.

The company has a number of other exploration leads within tie-back distance to Montara and to the company's producing Jabiru and Challis oil fields.