A Large Oilfield Discovered in Australia

Recently, Australian Carnarvon Oil Company and its joint venture partner Apache Corporation in the U.S. discover an oilfield on the Northeast Shelf, the western of Australia, which may be the largest oil field in Australia in the past 20 years. At present, exploration is still being proceeded.  

 

The statement submitted to ASX (Australian Stock Exchange) by Apache shows that it means that South Phoenix No.1 exploratory well will become a new oil area in Australia, if the further assessment can affirm the result. 

 

It is known that the two operations were exploring gas in the sea area originally while they discovered light crude serendipitously at the depth of 4.5 km under the seabed. The exploration had already lasted for 4 months and the location was 480 km from the northern of Port Headland, Australia. 

 

Kuck, the CEO of Carnarvon states that the sea area where the South Phoenix No.1 exploratory well is located is an area which has never been explored in the past 20 yeas. “At present, exploration is still being proceeded at a small area. In fact, there are still about 20 thousand square kilometers area needing to be explored.” He said. 

 

Carnarvon estimated that oil reserves in that area range from 30 million barrels to 3 hundred million barrels while the output of other Australian oilfields is less than 30 million barrels. For that the new discovered oilfield has huge potential. 

 

The statement also said that the exploration is still located at the primary stage. It is too early to estimate exploitable oil mass. The corporation will publish relevant information at the end of this year after technically analyzing records of exploration and core data.