Gippsland Assets

BassOil hopeful of farm-in interest

GIPPSLAND Basin explorer Bass Strait Oil Company says it is about to start approaching key players in the Gippsland basin and other potential partners about its new crop of prospects and leads.
BassOil yesterday said that its intensive geoscience work has defined a number of opportunities across VIC/P68 (Bass 100%) and VIC/P41 (Bass 64.565% and operator) it will soon start marketing.
The company successfully secured six-month delays for both permits to allow it to complete integrating and mapping the reprocessed 3D seismic data and quantitative interpretation data analysis from the NOMB seismic survey, work that had not been done before.
A number of prospects and leads have been identified that are similar to and on trend with the Longtom, Basker/Manta/Gummy and Kipper fields.
The team has also identified a number of follow up oil targets on trend with BassOil’s Leatherjacket oil discovery contained in Vic/P68.
The company is planning a small 3D seismic survey targeting an oil play over and around the Leatherjacket discovery because it believes that, based on the vintage 2D seismic date acquired over Leatherjacket, that there is the potential for a significant increase in the recoverable resource potential.
Leatherjacket was drilled by Esso in 1986 and discovered a net oil column of some 20 metres in the highly productive upper LaTrobe Group, but has long been considered sub-commercial.
Activities within PEP 150 (Bass 15%) in the onshore Otway Basin are on hold given the Victorian government moratorium on exploration activities.
The permit owners have applied for a further suspension of the work program and extension of the permit term as a result. If approved, the permit year one will be extended to August 2016 and the permit term will be extended to August 25, 2020.
BassOil shares the block, which cover the Ardonachie Trough, with Cooper Energy (20%) and Beach Energy (50%).