After completing an extensive review in two of its licence areas in the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, Melbana Energy has found a carbonate build up which could lead to a large oil reservoir.
The company’s discovery is in its offshore licence areas WA-544-P and NT/P87 located at the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, a large body of water off the coast of the Northern Territory and Western Australia and part of the Timor Sea.
Melbana has named the prospect Hudson, and it estimates for an oil only scenario there are 395 million barrels of oil, and for a gas only scenario, the company’s estimates are 2034 billion cubic feet.
Isolated carbonate build ups host some of the world’s largest oil reservoirs, but it is an untested play type in Australia.
The first exploration well to do so, designated Beehive-1, will drill the Beehive prospect in the adjacent licence area WA-488-P as early as 2024.
The licence areas, containing the undeveloped Turtle and Barnett oil discoveries, were granted to Melbana in 2020 under the Australian Government’s 2019 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release.
They are in shallow water (20 to 40 metres deep) and located about 300km southwest of Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory.
The Blacktip Gas Field lies to the northwest and its pipeline transects the northern boundary of NT/P87, allowing potential access to the Darwin LNG facility and/or the east coast gas market.
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