The Australian government is offering 28 exploration areas in its 2016 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release.
Map from Australia government. |
The acreage comprises 28 areas located across five basins in Commonwealth waters offshore of the Territory of Ashmore and Cartier Islands and Western Australia.
The basins include Bonparte, Browse, Offshore Canning, Roebuck, and Northern Carnarvon.
Twenty five areas are available for work program bidding and three areas for cash bidding, and all are at a range of water depths and vary in size and level of existing geological knowledge.
All areas are supported by pre-competitive geological and geophysical data and analysis undertaken by Geoscience Australia and information on third party rights or other considerations that may impact upon future petroleum activities in a release area.
Release areas in the Round One work program include AC16-1, AC16-2, W16-1, W16-3, W16-8, W16-10, W16-11, W16-13, W16-15, W16-16, W16-19, W16-20, W16-21, with a closing date of 8 December.
The cash bid prequalification round, which closes on 20 October, includes release areas W16-17, W16-22, W16-25. The cash bid auction closes on 2 February 2017.
The closing date for bids for Round Two is 23 March.