AWE Announces Unconventional Gas Estimate for Perth Basin

AWE Limited on Thursday released a gross unconventional prospective resource estimate of 11.1 Trillion Cubic Feet (TCF) of gas and 31 million barrels of Natural Gas Liquids (NGLs) in its four exploration permits in the onshore Perth Basin.

The estimate was provided in an independent technical assessment of exploration permits EP413, EP455, L4 and L5 undertaken by Deloitte LLP’s Calgary-based Resource Evaluation and Advisory practice (REA).

AWE has equity interests ranging from 44.25% to 100% in these permits.

“The REA assessment considered four unconventional targets: the Kockatea Shale; the Carynginia Shale; the Irwin River Coal Measures and the High Cliff Sandstone, to provide Best Estimate gross, un-risked, recoverable, prospective resource estimates for the four permits. Proof of concept has been demonstrated by successful production testing of gas from each of these intervals,” the company said.

The company said that it is also actively evaluating conventional and unconventional exploration and appraisal opportunities in its six other onshore Perth Basin permits that were not included in this technical assessment.

AWE’s Perth Basin drilling program this year is likely to commence with the Drover-1 exploration well in license EP455 in the first half of 2014 to establish the southern extent of the unconventional play fairway.

This will be followed by up to three wells in the northern part of the company’s Perth Basin acreage in mid-2014 to appraise the unconventional gas reservoir of the Senecio field and evaluate adjacent exploration prospects.

The company will also undertake further well testing in the Arrowsmith-2 well in EP413 during first quarter of 2014 to better define the flow potential of separate zones intersected in that well, AWE said.

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