It dates back to 26 March, but here's part of an article from...

It dates back to 26 March, but here's part of an article from The Age:

Most often referred to as Australia's "forgotten" sedimentary basin, the Arckaringa is centred on the opal mining town of Coober Pedy, some 450 kilometres to the west of the prolific oil and gas fields of the Cooper Basin.

The hydrocarbon potential of the Arckaringa was the subject of limited tests in the 1960s and 1970s when it was locked up by Santos and Delhi Petroleum, with the latter suggesting more than 20 leads and prospects just might have the (unrisked) potential to contain 900 million barrels of oil.

Santos/Delhi were encouraged by the South Australian government to relinquish the land in 1987 but the low oil prices and native title issues of the 1990s meant the Arckaringa was to remain forgotten until SAPEX applied for the ground in 2000. It was awarded its petroleum exploration licences last year after finally securing agreements with native title owners under the right-to-negotiate process.

Needless to say Andrejewskis is as keen as mustard to finally put the Arckaringa to the modern-day test.

Andrejewskis, a geologist with a background in management roles in the resource departments of South Australia and the Northern Territory, is joined on the board by Roger Wilson (chairman), David King, Paul Young and Pat Elliott.

The offer is 60 million shares at an issue price of 20¢ each with attached options on a one-for-two basis. There are 40 million shares held by the founders, seed capital investors and directors, giving a market capitalisation on listing of $20 million.

SAPEX reckons the Arckaringa contains a similar suite of Permian-age sediments to that found in the Cooper Basin. There is some debate about whether the sediments are too shallow but the counter argument is that all of the oil-forming elements were in place ahead of the "uplift".

Besides, only three exploration wells have been drilled to date and they were poorly located to boot. It won't be long before the debate on the Arckaringa's potential gets some hard evidence.

SAPEX is planning to drill at least two oil exploration wells in 2007 after first gathering some state of the art seismic information.

While SAPEX is very much an oil and gas explorer, it won't be ignoring the coal seam gas and coal potential of the Arckaringa.