Tyler said the company is particularly keen to find new long-life, tier one assets in its petroleum and copper assets, and it is using technology from its petroleum unit and applying directional drilling techniques to copper exploration

The company's regionally based exploration teams are supported by a globally integrated geoscience team to facilitate a faster adoption of best practice and new technology.

"Internal collaboration is very important and we are leveraging our petroleum business geoscience to identify prospective sediment hosted copper deposit basins, "Tyler said.

She said BHP was investing at a time when most in the sector is continue to reduce discretionary spending.

"Next financial year, we intend to invest approximately $US900 million dollars in exploration, which represents 18% of our overall capital budget."

Spending at that level is expected to continue until 2017-18.

"We are also challenging existing paradigms with a scientific based and disciplined approach to exploration. We have reduced exploration operating costs by 70% since 2013, and this year we have increased the targets tested by 44%."

BHP Billiton's Petroleum exploration program is focused on three conventional deep water basins in the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the northern Beagle sub-basin off the coast of Western Australia.

"Over the last four years we have developed a new approach to petroleum exploration that is much more focused," Tyler said.

"We have commenced drilling in Trinidad and Tobago and have secured an additional rig which will soon commence drilling in a prospective block north of our Shenzi operations in the Gulf of Mexico."

The company is trying to operate counter-cyclically securing additional acreage and rigs, a real test of which will be its wildcat drilling in Barbados, Trinidad and Tobago.

Targets are around 1Bboe potential net to BHPB with the potential for 100,000boepd.

The company has built a position across six plays in the deep water, across the Paleogene and Cretaceous in the Gulf of Mexico; Pliocene, Miocene and Paleogene in the Caribbean and the Jurassic in the Beagle Sub-basin.

Having largely completed the 3D surveys it is aiming to test these plays through a drilling program over the next three years, with drilling already underway in Trinidad and Tobago.

It is accelerating its program by securing an additional rig currently en route to Gulf of Mexico to drill in parallel, starting with the Caicos-1 well.

Tyler said the company has a proven track record in the Gulf, and it has added to its acreage position with 91 new blocks over the past nine months without any drilling obligations.

It has had recent success at Shenzi North and has seen positive signs in the Southern Green Canyon production heartland.

It is developing an accelerated plan to further appraise the basin by drilling the well early in 2016-17, looking at possible opportunities beyond Shenzi North and the Paleogene and Cretaceous plays in the western Gulf of Mexico.

In the Caribbean BHP believes it has secured first mover advantage, putting together a 17,500sq.km over nine in Trinidad and Tobago and two in Barbados.

It has defined three independent plays that it is starting to test with the spudding of the LeClerc-1 well in early June.

It has planned three wells in its first phase, and five further wells.

LeClerc is the first deep-water well ever drilled offshore Trinidad & Tobago, which has large offshore natural gas fields in shallow water and small onshore oil fields.

The well is tapping a large Miocene-aged structure formerly known as Peg Leg stretching 20 kilometres long and five km wide in Block 5 off the east coast of the island of Trinidad in almost 2000m of water.

With success it can drill another Miocene-aged prospect, and potentially another testing a new play concept.

That first phase of the project is expected to take up to nine months, after which BHP will pause to evaluate its results before planning future exploration work on its holdings.

BHP holds a 65% interest and operatorship at on Block 5. Shell holds the remaining 35% of the block, which it inherited through its acquisition of rival BG Group.

In Western Australia BHP is hoping to overturn recent stumbles by the likes of Woodside Petroleum and others in the area offshore of the Canning Basin, by farming into two blocks totalling some 25,000sq.km in the northern Beagle Sub-basin.

It has shot more than 30,000sq.km of 3D seismic date and pending positive evaluation it will commit to drilling its first well at some stage over the next 12 months.

In May, BHP Billiton CEO Andrew Mackenzie said the company has embarked on one of its most significant oil exploration programs through accelerated activity in three priority basins.

"Following the positive exploration results at Shenzi North (in the Gulf of Mexico), we plan to drill a further exploration well (Caicos) in July 2016 on our nearby Green Canyon 564 lease (BHP Billiton interest 100 percent)," he revealed, adding that the company had the portfolio quality and financial capability to deliver on its growth strategy, including oil exploration.

"We have the financial strength and the flexibility to pursue a diverse range of opportunities and grow value per share at all points in the cycle, and we have a clear and simple strategy in place to deliver that growth."