OMV sold Santos its 33% stake in Golden Beach in February this year when it exited most of its Australian assets.
Lakes Oil chairman Robert Annells said he, along with a number of other smaller explorers with interests in the area, would be interested in picking up Golden Beach, first discovered by Woodside in 1967. It lies four km off the Victorian coast.
He said the gas specifications were similar to that of the Wombat/Trifon tight gas field, which Lakes is attempting to prove up. He said regardless of whoever picked up Golden Beach, it would make good economic sense if the two projects were to share a gas processing facility prior to being sent to the Longford hub, as Bass Strait gas was significantly different in composition.
It is a small field and industry sources said whoever picked it up needed to get the economics right in order to make the field profitable.
A Santos representative said they usually made such announcements, when finalised, to the Australia Stock Exchange.
