Melbana has a 100% interest in two contiguous licences WA-544-P and NT/P87, covering an area of almost 4,000km2 in the Petrel sub-basin – a shallow water area of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf southwest of Darwin off the northern coast of Australia.
These two licences, awarded to Melbana in November 2020, contain the undeveloped Turtle and Barnett oil discoveries and are adjacent to Melbana’s recently sold permit WA-488-P1.
Melbana’s technical team has reprocessed and analysed the seismic data over the tenements and has identified a new carbonate buildup (the Hudson Prospect) that Melbana’s technical team have estimated could contain Prospective Resources of (unrisked mean recoverable estimates):
- Oil Only Scenario: 395 million barrels of oil
- Gas Only Scenario: 2,034 billion cubic feet3
Melbana is now seeking to farm-out part of its 100% interest to fund the acquisition of a 3D seismic survey to further derisk the prospect.
Beehive Prospect
WA-488-P contains the giant Beehive prospect with its Prospective Resource of up to 1.4 billion barrels of oil5 . The giant Beehive prospect, in a shallow water (about 40 metres) offshore location, is one of the largest undrilled hydrocarbon prospects in Australia.
Located near ENI’s Blacktip gas field and covered by a high-quality 3D seismic survey acquired in 2018, Beehive is a 180km2 isolated carbonate build up of Carboniferous age with 400 metres of mapped vertical relief and a crest at 4,100 metres.
Tengiz Analogy
Both the Hudson and Beehive prospects are analogous to the giant Tengiz field in the Caspian basin, the sixth largest oil field in the world, which is also a Carboniferous isolated carbonate build-up.
