Woodside is set to drill at least two wells in Mauritania in the next quarter after signing a contract to secure a drilling ship for the program.
The Stuart/Beach Petroleum joint venture is planning to spud a second well later this month, west of the historic Acrasia-1 well in the South Australian section of the Cooper Basin.
Hardman Resources and Bounty Oil and Gas said Woodada-19 in onshore Perth basin showed "significant" gas shows in the primary target zone, as its drills ahead.
Lakes Oil reported re-mapping of the northern section of PEP 157 (onshore Gippsland Basin) has shown it to be bigger than originally thought.
Sydney-based Novus told shareholders this week it is looking to big hitting gas wells in the US and the Middle East to help catapult it into the Australian oil and gas big league.
In the market, another Yankee utility is set to exit Australia's power market. This time Aquila Inc is sounding out about the sale of its portfolio of assets in Australia and NZ. The market believes the likely buyer will be AMP, which wants to set up a big energy fund.
Kimberley Oil is in the market looking to raise funds for the "workover" or redevelopment of now wholly-owned Blina Oilfields in WA's north west.
Nautronix had an interesting week. First it was the target of a second takeover bid by First Tech. Then later in week it scored a big legal victory against Lloyds of London in the US courts.
The energy division of Wesfarmers helped the group achieve a strong third quarter result while AlintaGas looked to take advantage of good gas prices to lock in favourable LPG hedging positions.
Victorian utility Multinet Gas awarded the Abigroup a big maintenance contract.
Australian industry leaders and politicians are increasingly confident that they can win the lucrative Chinese LNG contract against stiff competition from Indonesia and Qatar.
BHP Billiton told the markets it appointed KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers as its external auditors. This was another blow for the auditing firm Andersen, whose reputation has taken a battering because of its less than comprehensive role in the Enron collapse.
The Burrup Fertiliser project took another step closer to becoming reality after the State Government approved funding for a desalination plant. However, the Greens are up in arms over the impact of development on the Burrup and will take their fight to the United Nations.
Overseas, oil is trading around $US27 a barrel in New York.
BHPB is planning to spend big money in developing its Gulf of Mexico deepwater assets.
ConocoPhillips announced the location of its business units in wake of its recent merger. However for the staff in those offices, the company announced job losses as well.
Like ExxonMobil and BP the week before, Shell saw its profits drop by nearly half on the same period last year while at the same announcing plans to spend £20 million developing fuel from woodchips.
