EXPLORER Tap Oil says a sale process for its recent Tallaganda...

EXPLORER Tap Oil says a sale process for its recent Tallaganda and Zola gas discoveries off Western Australia, both of which would most likely be developed through LNG projects, could take six months.

Tap managing director Troy Hayden yesterday confirmed the Perth-based company still wanted to sell Tallaganda after it was revealed this week that operator BHP Billiton had become more bullish on the find and the opportunities it provided.

"Due to size and location of both of these discoveries, Tap considers the most likely development scenario in both cases to be an LNG development," Mr Hayden said.

Because of the lengthy development and return times, and multibillion capital costs, associated with LNG development, Tap is trying to make money from the finds now.

"We don't believe these are core assets for Tap and have consequently initiated a sale process to sell a package of gas assets in the Carnarvon Basin," Mr Hayden said.

"We believe these assets provide a good opportunity for a buyer to access a material position (in the basin)."

Tallaganda was discovered in April and Zola, which is operated by Apache, was discovered about a year earlier.

In its recently released 2011-12 petroleum review, BHP made its first comments on the significance of Tallaganda, saying it was the company's biggest discovery of the financial year and that it had created a number of follow-up opportunities.

Tap's shares jumped 8 per cent on Monday after BHP's comments were reported.

Yesterday, the shares rose 1c to a new five-month high of 79c but are still down on where they were when Tallaganda was announced.

BHP is still evaluating the size of the field, which has left Tap cautious on talking up the project.

Tap's sale process, which Mr Hayden said could take another six months to close, is being run internally.

The company has more than $100m in cash, meaning it can fund future exploration commitments on the permits while the sale process runs.

Tap has been cautious about talking up Tallaganda but according to BHP the well had a net-pay zone of 86m. While this is healthy, more information on how well the gas flows is needed before it can be worked out how much gas could be produced.