Australia's Cooper Energy Upgrades Prospective Resource at Manta field, Chimaera East Prospect Offshore Victoria

Cooper Energy Limited last week said it has completed a review of the Manta Deep and Chimaera East prospects offshore Gippsland Basin and has re-assessed its Best Estimate Net Prospective Resource in the two prospects.

Best Estimate Net Prospective Resource in the Manta Deep and Chimaera East prospects in VIC/RL13, VIC/RL14 and VIC/RL15 has been revised to be 97.5 MMboe consisting of 491 PJ gas and 13.1 MMbbls oil and gas liquid (Cooper Energy net share).

However, Cooper said further evaluation is needed to determine a significant quantity of potentially moveable hydrocarbons.

“The estimated quantities of petroleum that may be potentially recovered by the application of future development project(s) relate to undiscovered accumulations. These estimates have both an associated risk of discovery and a risk of development. Further exploration, appraisal and evaluation is required to determine the existence of a significant quantity of potentially moveable hydrocarbons,” the company stated.

The Manta Deep prospect is located below the Manta gas and oil field and can be evaluated by deepening the proposed Manta-3 appraisal well by an additional 1,000 metres, Cooper added. The Prospective Resource assessment is in addition to the gross Contingent Resource (2C) of 106 PJ and 2.6 MMbbls gas condensate estimated for the Manta gas field (Cooper Energy net share 69PJ and 1.7 MMbbls).

The Chimaera East prospect is located 3km south east along the same structural trend and updip from the Chimaera-1 exploration well that discovered gas in the Golden Beach GB6 reservoir.

Both Manta and Chimaera are located offshore Victoria, 58 kilometres from the Orbost Gas Plant shore crossing in water depths of approximately 130 metres.

Participating interests in VIC/RL13, VIC/RL14 and VIC/RL15 are: Cooper Energy Limited (65% and Operator) and Beach Energy Limited (35%).