The Karratha North survey, which started last week, is in WA-340-P. Interests are Strike Oil (40%), Victoria Petroleum (20%), Sun Resources (20%) and Pancontinental Oil and Gas (20%).

Karratha South survey is in TP/19 and EP421. Interests are Strike Oil (90%) and Bow Energy (10%).

The Mad Hatter survey is in TP/18 and EP420. Interests are Strike Oil (50%) and Tap Oil (50% and operator).

The Hood is in TP/6 and EP342. Strike Oil has 100% in this area.

The Rivoli survey is in EP325. Interests are Strike Oil (44.5%), Victoria Petroleum (36.1%), Bow Energy (11.1%) and Black Rock Oil and Gas (8.3%).

Strike Oil is the operator in each of these areas, except TP/18 and EP420, but in these leases it will manage the Mad Hatter survey on behalf of operator Tap Oil.

“Many of the areas covered by the surveys have not had ‘modern day’ seismic acquisition over them,” Strike said.

“The new data is expected to add significantly to the current geological understanding.

“The surveys will be conducted over known prospects and leads with the view to maturing a number of locations primarily for oil exploration drilling in the latter half of 2006 and into 2007. All the prospects and leads are in water depths of less than 50 metres and can be drilled by a jack-up rig.”

The Rivoli survey in the Exmouth Gulf will be over the Rivoli gas field located 7km southeast of Exmouth. This field was discovered by Minora Resources in 1989 but was not developed because of the absence of a market for the gas at the time.

More recently, Victoria Petroleum and Strike Oil investigated marketing the Rivoli gas as an alternative fuel for the Exmouth power station and the navy base, according to Strike managing director Simon Ashton.

“One of the problems with marketing the gas is the absence of enough information to accurately determine the size of the gas field,” Ashton said.

“Our current estimate is around 15 billion cubic feet of gas with additional potential in the untested underlying Rivoli Deep prospect. We believe the new seismic survey will provide the additional information required to make a more accurate assessment of the Rivoli gas field and the deeper prospect.”

The Veritas-owned M/V Pacific Sword is a dual-source, dual-streamer seismic vessel equipped with advanced integrated geophysical and navigation data acquisition systems, full quality assurance capabilities and onboard positioning and seismic data processing facilities.

The vessel was built in 1981 but has since undergone several refits and upgrades, including the latest conversion in September 1999 to offer Syntrak 960-24 recording technology, manufactured by Syntron, Inc.

“The M/V Pacific Sword is ideally suited for the acquisition of 2D and small-to-medium sized 3D surveys,” Veritas said.

“The vessel can deploy dual streamers for 3D surveys or a long single streamer for 2D surveys. Seismic data processing is routinely carried out onboard using Veritas' proprietary SeismicTANGO system.”