The Northern Territory resources minister Ken Vowles has fuelled hopes of at least a partial lifting of the territory's fracking moratorium late this year, talking up the prospects of onshore gas.
Mr Vowles told a petroleum industry breakfast in Perth that exploration and studies had revealed the opportunity for "significant new gas development" and "abundant opportunities for resource exploration".
He asked the industry to "continue to support" the ongoing scientific inquiry into hydraulic fracturing, which should result in an interim report in June and a final report by the year-end.
"If the panel determines that hydraulic fracturing can be done in a safe and manageable way in the Northern Territory, then this inquiry process will have helped industry to earn its social license to operate for the future," he noted.
Attention has focused on the remote Beetaloo Basin, where Origin Energy has reported promising results and which was highlighted at the APPEA conference as the spark of excitement in an otherwise dormant Australian shale sector.
Origin's unconventional exploration manager David Close said a large and potentially economic gas resource was taking shape in the Beetaloo, where Origin, Santos and private player Pangaea Resources are heading an exploration push.
Origin has drilled three vertical wells and a horizontal well at its Beetaloo venture and completed some fracture stimulation before the moratorium was imposed to try and "show it is viable as quickly as possible", Mr Close said.
He pointed in particular to the first horizontal well, Amungee, as an encouraging indication of the project's viability. Origin announced an initial "contingent resource" of 6.6 trillion cubic feet of gas at the venture in February.
"I think our strategy to move as quickly as possible to horizontals has been validated and we may look back at that hole as a 'Eureka' moment," Mr Close said.
"They are a bit hard to get in unconventionals, 'Eureka' moments, but maybe one was there in 2016 for us and we are not 100 per cent of it aware of it yet."
Mr Close said it could take just one play to transform the onshore gas supply picture in Australia.
"We don't need to six or seven basins to work if one basin has a lot of running room that could create a good change, but it is not going to happen easily, there are a lot of challenges in front of us," he said.
The hurdles include improving performance, reducing costs and, not least, the lifting of the moratorium.
Addressing landowner concerns about groundwater contamination and disruption to their businesses were high on Origin's agenda, Mr Close said, including actively contesting misconceptions about well integrity, well density and the industry's impact on groundwater.
Mr Vowles also noted the the Barkly region between Tennant Creek and Mt Isa would see a range of geoscience programs and surveys to identify new resource opportunities, and said the government would draw up the NT's first "resources prospectus" to attract investment in exploration.
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