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He did not wish to be named as he is not authorised to speak to the media on the subject.

If reserves are proven and found to be viable, BPRL could have claim to almost 20 tcf of natural gas reserves by virtue of their high participating interest, something it hasn't yet seen even in Mozambique where the company holds claim to around 10 tcf out of the total expected reserve base of 60 tcf, approximately.

In Mozambique, BPRL has a 10% participating interest in a consortium of 6 players including another Indian joint venture of ONGC Videsh-OIL.
An analyst with an international brokerage said: “We are valuing BPCL’s upstream asset at $1.7-1.8 billion, which is almost half of its market cap currently. This translates into a share price of close to R150-160 per share at a conservative estimate. With Indonesia and Australia coming in, this could revise significantly upwards.”

However, he said the problem with shale gas is that it is highly capital intensive as it requires drilling of a very high number of wells so the amount BPCL shells out for its subsidiary in Australia will be way much higher than it is currently doing for Mozambique.

BPCL has so far invested R4,000 crore in its upstream business and will be investing another R12,000 crore till FY15, said RK Singh, former chairman and managing director, BPCL during the company annual general meeting in September.

The BPCL official said Australia will be a testing ground for BRPL and will help it in gaining experience which the company can then use to explore shale gas in India when the blocks come up for bidding next year.