Last year, the Roc Oil-led joint venture made a gas discovery at Frankland-1 and an oil find at Dunsborough-1. The permit also surrounds the lease for the Cliff Head oil field, so there is already extensive production infrastructure in the area.

In a Corporate File Open Briefing yesterday, Arc managing director Eric Streitberg said the JV had a firm drilling program consisting of the Lilac exploration well and the Frankland appraisal well with a contingent Dunsborough oil field appraisal well.

“Lilac is a Dunsborough look-alike oil prospect right beside the ‘Cliff Head-sized’ Dunsborough oil discovery and the majority of the JV were in favour of drilling it first to optimise the development of Dunsborough if Lilac is a discovery,” Streitberg said.

“We expect the Frankland-2 appraisal well will give us the confidence to move quickly to a development decision for this gas field. This program has the potential to more than double our Perth Basin reserves of both oil and gas through very low-risk appraisal and exploration drilling.”

In addition to the drilling activity, the 3D seismic survey started yesterday over the trend in the permit is expected to confirm several other similar drilling targets.

The Cliff Head and WA-286-P partners are Roc (37.5%), AWE Oil (27.5%), Arc (30%) and CIECO Exploration and Production (5%).