Australia
Lion Petroleum Pty. Ltd. agreed to drill an exploratory well in the coastal EP 439 Permit in Western Australia’s onshore Carnarvon basin in a farmout from the Empire Oil & Gas NL-operated EP 439 Joint Venture.
By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, Mar. 8 – Lion Petroleum Pty. Ltd. agreed to drill an exploratory well in the coastal EP 439 Permit in Western Australia’s onshore Carnarvon basin in a farmout from the Empire Oil & Gas NL-operated EP 439 Joint Venture.
Lion also obtained the right to drill one well each 12 months in EP 439 to retain the right to a production license over any discovery. Empire’s Rough Range Oil Pty. Ltd., operator of EP 436, agreed to drill the wells on behalf of Lion and the joint venture.
The permit north of the town of Carnarvon covers 7,200 sq km in the Gascoyne subbasin, and the Dampier to Bunbury gas pipeline crosses the eastern part of the permit. The subbasin contains up to 6,000 m of Late Cambrian, Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, and Permian clastic sediments.
Empire considers the main traditional play is Late Devonian reefs of the Gneudna formation, sealed and sourced by intraformational seals. Organic-rich marine shales are in the oil generation window in the northern half of the permit, where Lion has delineated drilling locations and will nominate the location of the first well shortly.
