The 'Falkland Islands Hydrocarbon Consortium' has announced that it had been awarded 10 adjoining offshore exploration licences in the region, covering an area of 57,700 square kilometres.

Australian participation in the consortium includes recently restructured Global Petroleum Limited which has a 50% interest and the listed Hardman Resources NL petroleum group with a 30% stake.

Global - which plans to re-list on the Australian Stock Exchange next month - is currently undertaking a $15 million capital raising, the largest in Australia's petroleum sector this year.

As well as the new Falkland Islands interests, Brisbane-based Global already owns a suite of international oil and gas properties in Kenya, Montenegro, Fiji and Jordan.

Hardman has producing gas interests in Western Australia and is in a joint venture with Woodside on a major new oil province offshore Mauritania in West Africa.

Joining Hardman and Global in the consortium with a 20% interest is the Islands' main infrastructure and commercial entity, the Falkland Islands Company.

The area awarded to the consortium is four times larger than the offshore petroleum acreage currently under licence to the north of the Falkland Islands.

"The southern Falklands Islands province is one of the last international frontiers for new petroleum exploration and the licences offered are on favourable industry terms," said Global's executive chairman, Dr John Armstrong.

"As far as we are aware, this is the first time petroleum exploration licences have been granted for the area to the south and east of the Falklands, with most of the previous and current exploration undertaken to the north of the Islands," Dr Armstrong said.

"As the international oil and gas industry is now much less limited by location and water depth, the securing of this frontier province by Global is an important step in continuing to build our worldwide suite of petroleum exploration assets.

"In exploring our new licence areas, the consortium will be targeting reservoirs similar to those that exist to the west in Argentine waters in the Malvinas and Magallanes Basins.

"A 1981 Exxon well drilled in the Argentine waters recorded a flow test of 3,000 barrels of oil per day, proving the existence of a nearby working petroleum system.

"The southern and eastern petroleum areas are quite different petroleum geology from the North Falklands Basin and are within a far larger unexplored basin."

Global will act as Operator for the consortium with initial work involving the reprocessing of existing seismic data and interpretation, followed by new seismic surveys to detail the province's hydrocarbon system and to identify prospects.

Dr Armstrong said the awarding of the licences had culminated a five-year campaign by the consortium to secure access rights to these highly prospective blocks, including having a company representative resident in the Falklands for two years.

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