Australian oil exploration company Carnarvon Petroleum has been given more time to find a partner and drill a well at its Cerberus project in the North West Shelf offshore Western Australia.
The Cerberus project consists of four exploration blocks, namely the EP-490, EP-491, TP/27, and EP-475.
Carnarvon said on Monday that the Department of Mines and Petroleum of Western Australia approved its application for suspension and extension of year three work commitments on the Cerberus licenses.
The company added that this would give it sufficient preparation time to drill a contingent well in 2018 and complete the necessary efforts to secure a partner to help fund the necessary exploration drilling.
The 2018 drilling will be contingent upon Carnarvon agreeing to enter into the next commitment year in May 2018. This has also allowed the EP-490, EP-491, and TP/27 exploration permits to be aligned with the drilling commitments in the EP-475 exploration block.
The Cerberus blocks covers 3,700 square kilometers in the heart of the Northern Carnarvon Basin, relatively close to a number of producing oil and gas fields. Current prospects contain 624 million barrels of recoverable oil on a Pmean basis.
Honeybadger, Kes, and Belfon prospects
The company said that its success within the Roebuck basin de-risked the lower Triassic play potential across the North West Shelf.
“Resource analysis of the leads and prospects within Cerberus resulted in meaningful estimates for a number of well defined prospects and leads,” said Carnarvon.
In particular, Honeybadger, Kes, and Belfon prospects were estimated to contain a total of 132 million barrels of oil at the Pmean confidence level.
The Belfon prospect is defined as a horst block structure, with Permian Kennedy Formation reservoir sealed by the regional Locker Shale. Kes is a stratigraphic trap which is interpreted to contain good quality turbidite reservoirs sealed by the Locker Shale. The Honeybadger prospect is similar in nature to Kes.