OREANDA-NEWS. The Australian government today released 29 areas for offshore petroleum exploration in eight basins as part of its annual release of new exploration areas.

A total of 23 areas are available for work programmes and a further six are available for cash bidding, the Australian government said. Canberra also awarded eight new offshore petroleum exploration permits from the first round of bidding for new acreage released in 2014.

Six of the 2015 exploration permits are located in the Bonaparte basin that straddle areas offshore Western Australia (WA) and the Northern Territory (NT), four are in the Browse basin offshore WA and 12 are located in the Carnarvon and Roebuck basins offshore WA. One is in the Ceduna basin offshore South Australia, three are located in the Otway basin offshore and two in the Gippsland basin, both offshore Victoria and one is in the Sorrell basin offshore Tasmania.

The NT15-1 permit covers an area near the near 900km pipeline for the 8.4mn t/yr Ichthys LNG projected operated by Japanese upstream group Inpex. The pipeline connects the Ichthys field in the Browse basin to the project's liquefaction plant at Darwin, NT.

W15-2 is located in an area to the west of the Bayu-Undan field in the Timor Sea, which is the main gas supply source for the 3.7mn t/yr Darwin LNG project operated by ConocoPhillips.

The W15-4 permit is located about 25km to the west of the Ichthys field and to the north and west of the Burnside gas discovery, which is operated by Australian independent Santos.

The W15-17 permit is located about 20km to the west of the Scarborough gas field, which is operated by ExxonMobil. The W15-16 permit is located to the south of the Io/Jansz gas field, which is part of the 15.6mn t/yr Gorgon LNG project operated by Chevron.