Australian states and Northern Territory acreage update at APPEA 2008

Abstract

This is the annual presentation of what’s happening in onshore and coastal waters exploration in Australia’s states and the Northern Territory. The main focus of these jurisdictions’ annual report at the APPEA conference is upstream petroleum acreage opportunities. Exploration for geothermal energy resources will also be covered.

There are many and diverse exploration opportunities in onshore frontier and producing Australian basins available for explorers in 2008, including geothermal energy exploration opportunities. The number of onshore Australian acreage applications has been steadily increasing in recent years and this has resulted in higher levels of drilling and seismic acquisition, but large areas remain untouched by modern exploration.

Australian state governments continue initiatives to encourage exploration to realise their natural resource endowments including: pre-competitive basin studies; speedy and cost-effective provision of digital exploration data; provision of effective land access regimes; transparent regulatory regimes; internationally competitive royalty regimes; and, promotion of acreage releases nationally and internationally.