Offshore staff
LONDON --BP has been awarded four deepwater offshore blocks in the Ceduna sub basin within the Great Australian Bight offshore South Australia.
The company has an exploration permit for petroleum (EPP) areas EPP 37, EPP 38, EPP 39, and EPP 40 (24,000 sq km, or 9,266 sq mi, in total), with the right to develop any commercially viable discoveries.
"This is a material and early move into an unexplored deepwater basin," said Mike Daly, EVP of Exploration for BP.
"The Ceduna sub-basin is a very exciting new exploration area for BP. Our experience tells us that the geology has a high potential for containing hydrocarbons," added Dr Phil Home, managing director of BP's Australian upstream oil and gas business.
BP will phase its proposed exploration activity over six years and, as part of the regulatory approval process, this will be subject to detailed environmental assessment.
Seismic surveys could be performed during summer 2011/12, but drilling is unlikely before 2013 or 2014. BP says it will use the intervening time to implement lessons learned from the investigations into the Montaraand Deepwater Horizon incidents, working closely with the Australian government, the South Australian government, and industry.
01/17/2011
