Australian oil and gas company Finder Energy has secured a license extension for its WA-547-P development, located in the prolific Dorado play trend in the Northern Carnarvon Basin offshore Western Australia.
Finder Energy has been granted a three-year suspension and extension of the primary term of WA-547-P, extending the end date to January 4, 2027 with no additional commitments.
WA-547-P is fully owned by Finder Energy, which has identified three large prospects (Brees, Favre and Brady) with combined 2U (P50) prospective resource potential of over 500 MMbbl1 of recoverable oil, according to the company.
The Dorado Field, to the east of WA-547-P, is the largest undeveloped conventional oil resource in Australia and Santos is aiming to be ready for FID this year.
With historic exploration success rates in the basin of around 70% and significant prospectivity, Santos is actively pursuing this play.
“We anticipate further exploration drilling to come and combined with a continuation of the high success rate in this play, will have positive implications for WA-547-P,” Finder Energy said.
In that regard, Finder Energy is seeking a farmout partner to fund exploration activity to test the significant prospectivity we have identified in WA-547-P.
“Investment confidence in the sector in Australia was badly damaged due to delays and costs caused by litigation funded by activists which impeded activity on high profile projects including Santos’ Barossa Gas Project and Woodside’s Scarborough LNG Project.
“Both of those projects have recently overcome those impediments and are now proceeding again. Finder hopes these positive developments will help restore investment confidence, leading to improved farmout conditions in Australia.
“Securing additional tenure on WA-547-P in this environment is critical to the success of our farmout strategy,” Finder Energy said.