Equinor AS has been awarded exploration acreage in the Northern Carnarvon basin on the North West Shelf offshore Western Australia.
Block WA-542-P, operated and held 100% by Equinor, lies west of the Dorado oil discovery. The block covers 4,815 sq km about 100 km from the Australian coast in 80-350 m of water (OGJ Online, Oct. 8, 2019).
The company sought to acquire the permit following the discovery of Dorado oil and gas field in July 2018.
The work program for the block includes geological and geophysical studies, reprocessing of seismic data, and new 3D seismic acquisition.
“An interesting new liquids play has emerged in this part of Australia’s North West Shelf, and we are looking forward to assessing the potential in our new permit,” said Paul McCafferty, Equinor’s senior vice-president for international offshore exploration.
Equinor opened an Australian office in 2012 and is operator of the two controversial Ceduna subbasin permits, EPP 39 and EPP 40, in the Great Australian Bight offshore South Australia.
The first well, Stromlo-1, will be drilled pending approval by the Australian National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (OGJ Online, Oct. 7, 2019).
