Exxon- Mobil, BHP eye Bass Strait oil devt

PNG LNG project operator ExxonMobil and Australia’s giant diversified resources company BHP Billiton considering a stand-alone development of the South East Remora oil discovery in Bass Strait of South Australia. 
The find is shaping up as one of the biggest in recent years in the once-mighty oil producing region.
Exxon Australia chairman John Dashwood said Bass Strait had returned some impressive exploration results in the past 12 months, including the announcement of the Southeast Remora-1 wildcat discovery in April.
“It has some interesting hydrocarbons in it,” Dashwood yesterday told Australian newspaper The Australian.
“We’re trying to figure out what we have there and what’s the best way to develop it; does it stand alone or do you have to hook it up to something (existing)?”
Exxon has been quiet on how much oil and gas it believes is at Southeast Remora, 35km off the Victorian coast and near the Exxon/BHP Marlin A platform.
“We haven’t got a size on it yet,” Dashwood added.
“In terms of Bass Strait, it’s probably among the bigger finds in recent times.
“Compared with what’s in Western Australia, though, it’s modest – and compared with the original Kingfish and Halibut fields (in Bass Strait), it’s very, very modest,” he said.
Another Australian newspaper Sydney Morning Herald also reported that the Bass Strait’s Gippsland Basin was the nation’s biggest oil producing region, with production peaking at more than 600,000 barrels a day — more than three times what it produces now.
But while most of the oil is believed to have been taken out, there are still enough small gas pools, when combined with better extraction technology, to keep the likes of Exxon and BHP interested.
Whether there was enough for bigger players to enter the region was another matter, the newspaper reported.
Dashwood was quoted saying all six exploration wells it drilled that year were dry and the program appeared to have been abandoned.
“Anybody who says there is another Kingfish field out there in Bass Strait was probably very optimistic –  those sorts of fields are not going to be there,” Dashwood said.
“I think you will find there will be more modest pools to be discovered, likely to be more prone to be gas than oil,” he added.
BHP has said it could develop the field, which contains about 10 trillion cubic feet of gas, through a US$15 billion-US$20 billion stand-alone LNG plant.