VIC/P49 lies adjacent to Nexus’ wholly owned VIC/P56 permit where Nexus plans to drill an exploration well early next year. Success in this permit will substantially increase the prospectivity and industry interest in VIC/P49.

The 2,351 square kilometre field was recently purchased from EnCana, a Canadian corporation in exchange for an overriding royalty of between 4% and 5% depending on the volume of hydrocarbons produced, said Nexus CEO Ian Tchacos.

“We are delighted to have been able to obtain the VIC/P49 permit at very attractive terms having recognised its potential from the work being done in VIC/P56.

VIC/P49 is close to significant producing fields such as Tuna, Flounder, halibut, Terakihi/Blackback and Marlin, but it lies in an area that contains only two fields, Great White-1 and Whaleshark-1.

Nexus said this area had been under-explored because a deeply scoured, stepply dipping water bottom and complex shallow geology have made seismic imaging and accurate depth conversion difficult.

“In the past, different operators have used a variety of seismic processing techniques to address this problem, resulting in a series of inconsistent overlapping 2D seismic and 3D seismic data sets that have actually hampered interpretation and mapping in the area,” Tchacos said.

“We have developed a processing technique that removes the inconsistencies between the seismic data sets and produces a single data set that can be interpreted and mapped with much greater confidence than was possible before. The technique has been used in VIC/P56 and the company intends to apply it in VIC/P49.”

Nexus plans to participate in up to six exploration wells in the Gippsland and Bonaparte Basins in the next 12-18 months.