2011 PESA industry review: exploration

Abstract

A continuing high and stable oil price through the latter part of 2011, oscillating around US$120 in the case of Tapis Crude, underpinned a small increase in exploration in 2011 in Australia compared with 2010, although there were marked regional differences between the northwest and southeast parts of the country. Exploration continued to be focused on the northwest offshore seeking incremental reserve additions of conventional gas to support planned and proposed liquid natural gas (LNG) projects and although information is hard to confirm, in general this program appears to have been successful with a number of relatively smaller discoveries and at least one major find, Zola–1.

In the Cooper Basin exploration activity resumed after almost being shut down by floods in 2010, although flooding continued to be a problem in 2011. In the South Australian part, 27 new field wildcat (NFW) wells were drilled in 2011 compared with 8 in 2010. The program was also marked by a high rate of success.

The other current major area of activity, the Queensland coal seam gas (CSG) program was also affected by flooding early in 2011 with 524 coal seam gas (CSG) wells drilled this year, compared with 648 in 2010 and more than 900 in 2009.

In many jurisdictions shale gas or shale oil wells are not reported separately and are included in conventional petroleum wells in this report.

Exploration for geothermal resources continued at a relatively low level with only 10 wells drilled in Australia in 2011, the most active state was Victoria with five wells.

Despite the increase in activity, preliminary indications are that total exploration expenditure in 2011 will be less than in 2010. It is interesting to note that while the exploration effort in terms of wells and seismic has not changed much in the last few years the total expenditure has steadily increased in part reflecting the movement into deeper water drilling.