Warrego (ASX:WGO) exercised its Call Option on exploration permit application STP-EPA-0127, in the north Perth Basin Western Australia, and now holds the application via subsidiary Palatine Energy.
EPA-0127, which on final grant will be 2.2m acres (8,700 km2) and is the largest exploration permit in the Perth Basin. The Call Option was entered into in April 2016 and was exercised for $250,000 of Warrego Convertible Notes. A further $100,000 in shares is payable once approvals are in place and a work programme has commenced in the northern Perth Basin Permit.
The WA fracking ban will apply to the exploration permit to be granted pursuant to this application.
The STP-EPA-0127 permit
- is 185km long and about 55km wide (8,700 km2) and essentially covers the entire Coolcalalaya Sub-Basin.
- contains up to 9000m of Neo-Proterozoic, Palaeozoic and Mesozoic sediment
- lies at the northern limit of the prospective and partially developed Perth Basin, which produces conventional oil and gas from several fields.
Main exploration targets identified in the Coolcalalaya sub-basin are:
- Conventional (Waitsia type) Permian sands
- Conventional Permo-Carboniferous tilted fault blocks
Potential
- Primary Lower Permian Kingia and High Cliff Sandstone targets are equivalent to the Waitsia conventional gas setting.
- Upper Permian Dongarra Sandstone represents a secondary conventional target.
- Potential play in conventional tilted fault blocks, involving Permo-Carboniferous sandstones reservoirs along the western edge of the main trough, and sourced from the Devonian Gneudna Formation.
North Perth Basin Work Programme
- Two years full review of existing well data: outcrop geology; geochem; physical properties; coring; seismic reprocessing
- Comprehensive stratigraphic drilling to recover samples and test hydrocarbon presence
- New 2D seismic acquisition and interpretation
- At least one exploration/appraisal well
- Evaluation studies and resource assessment
