drilling report 4th oct, page-27

Wow its certainly quite on the NSE thread.
An article of interest.-

Western Australia sees opportunity in unconventional gas sector

October 2nd, 2012 admin


Since the global unconventional gas market gets momentum, activity in the Western Australian (WA) petroleum sector is warming up, said Kevin Skipworth, the WA Government’s Agent General to Europe.

With 135 trillion cubic feet (tcf) in proved reserves, Australia is actually a known contributor to the global gas supply – exporting gas by means of LNG for over 20 years.

While its shale industry is still in its start, Evaluate Energy analyst Eoin Coyne told OGFJ last June, “momentum has been steadily building with early estimates of 400 tcf of shale gas resources being present across several basins in the country.”

In WA, two basins getting attention for their shale potential would be the Canning Basin and the Perth Basin.

Within the Canning, the Goldwyer Shale runs across the northern edge of Great Sandy Desert and stretches across 45,000 sq km of the onshore basin. It has generated specific interest since US supermajor ConocoPhillips earned a 75% interest from New Standard Energy last summer in return for $A113.5 million in drilling, coring and evaluation costs.

According to an April 2011 report by the US Energy Information Administration, the Goldwyer Shale contained 764 tcf of risked gas in position and 229 tcf of risked recoverable gas, the biggest estimate for any basin in Australia.

Western Australia is home to a big part of the world’s shale gas reserves along with its known conventional gas reserves, identified prospective areas, and potential tight gas discoveries, Skipworth mentioned. He is convinced the State’s rising unconventional gas sector will have a significant part in the domestic and worldwide energy supply answer in the future.
“As the largest State in Australia, Western Australia occupies 33% of our continent’s land mass – with 80% of the State’s population living within 30 kilometres of the coast,” he said. “This presents a significant opportunity for investment in exploration and development in the unconventional gas sector across WA.”

To promote this development, Skipworth said the Western Australian Government was concentrating on initiatives associated with regulation, as well as skilled labor as well as training, approvals, safety, and exploration.

Skipworth will talk much more about Western Australia’s concentrate on unconventionals at Aberdeen’s Unconventional Gas Conference 2012 in November.

Cited from www.ogfj.com/articles