Carnarvon Energy : Preparing for Bedout Basin

Prospects in the Bedout Basin present a significant opportunity for Carnarvon Energy. The Pavo-1 and Apus-1 wells will very shortly test two of these prospects.

But there are a large number of additional prospects in the basin and the Joint Venture continues to acquire new 3D seismic data and work on maturing the prospect "book" with existing data. Overall, we remain particularly optimistic about the potential in the Bedout Basin.

Pavo-1

Located 42km east of Dorado in 88m of water, the Pavo-1 well is an attractive prospect, with Carnarvon calculating mean recoverable volumes of 82 million barrels of liquids and 108 Bcf of gas.

The Noble Tom Prosser drilling rig is anticipated to mobilise and spud at the site in the second half of February once it completes its current activities in the Carnarvon Basin.

No stranger to the area, the 2014-built Tom Prosser jack-up rig was used to drill the successful Dorado-2 and Dorado-3 appraisal wells in 2019.

Apus-1

The second component of the drilling campaign, targeting considerably larger volumes than Pavo, is the Apus-1 well that is located 31km south-east of Dorado in 84m of water.

Only 10km from Pavo-1, it has an estimated mean recoverable volume of 235 million barrels of liquids and 408 Bcf of gas, a scale that gives it potential to develop into a standalone project even if it comes in mid-size.

Together, these two prospects could significantly enhance the Dorado field's aggregate development resource through tiebacks to existing facilities, producing more barrels at lower cost and extending the potential field life.

Exploration and data

In addition to high impact drilling activity, Carnarvon is conducting ongoing 3D seismic data collection across a 650sq.km of the permit WA-436-P in an area north-east of Dorado.

Commencing in February this year, the seismic acquisition program will be conducted in water depths ranging from 100m to 200m and is being carried out by Shearwater's 108m Geo Coral seismic acquisition vessel.

This new data will add to the 2,700sq.km of 3D seismic acquired last year and complement the now very substantial 3D seismic data base that covers the Bedout Basin.