Plenty of excitement in new BHP Billiton WA oil targets

Sep 16, 2015

BHP Billiton believes it has identified an exciting new potential oil play off the Western Australian coast that could be a new game changer for the local oil and gas industry.

Speaking at the 20015 Barclays CEO Energy-Power Conference in New York in early September 2015 BHP Billiton Petroleum President, Tim Cutt, revealed that the company has identified some potential high class, high payback drill targets in the Beagle sub-basin off the north-west coast of Western Australia.

Cutt told the New York gathering that BHP Billiton Petroleum’s mega-regional evaluation of Western Australia has highlighted the potential for a largely untested Tier 1 liquids play in the underexplored Beagle sub-basin.

He told the audience that the company has identified four leads that each have the potential of over 400 million barrels of oil recoverable.

BHP Billiton has built up a formidable position in the sub-basin, holding interests in 25,000 sq. km of exploration acreage.

The discovery of the Beagle sun-basin targets follows close on the heels of Apache Energy and Carnarvon Petroleum’s game changing Phoenix South-1 oil and gas discovery off the north west coast of WA last year.

The Phoenix South find in the underexplored Bedout sub-basin has rejuvenated interest in the offshore potential off the WA coast with a number of companies moving to explore areas that were previously thought to be more likely to hold gas.

As with Apache and Carnarvon, BHP Billiton has used modern 3D seismic acquisition and interpretation technology to identify this new opportunity, which, if successful could possibly lead to a surge on new drilling activity off the WA coast at a time when exploration budgets have been slashed due to low oil prices.

Author: Colin Hay

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