While most of Strike’s capital will be devoted to the US, its Perth-based workforce will spend the bulk of its time on the company’s Australian assets, managing director Simon Ashton said.

Strike still has oil-prospective holdings offshore Carnarvon in Western Australia and onshore in the Cooper Basin.

Ashton himself has a proven track record of making gas discoveries in particular, having been involved in the Casino gas field discovery off the Victorian coast.

The company will be busy over the next few months interpreting data gathered from five 2D seismic surveys in the Carnarvon Basin off Western Australia, between Dampier and Exmouth Gulf.

The surveys began in November last year, with results returned just before Christmas.

Ashton described the surveys as “very successful”, having been completed on budget and to schedule with “no major issues”.

“These days there are a lot of administrative hoops to jump through to get an offshore seismic survey approved … it can take about six months,” he said.

The data will continue to come in over the next few months and will be compiled with existing data.

Most of the work will be done by mid-year when Strike will look to arrange farm-in partners and rigs to start a drill program.

Ashton said rig availability was still a major problem in the industry, but the company had the contacts to sidestep the issue and should be drilling targets toward the end of the year.

The final focus area is the Cooper-Eromanga Basin of central Australia, where Strike has four permits picked up from the reallocation of permits by Santos.

The company recently announced the approval of Native Title agreements over the Beach Petroleum-operated ATP 633P, in which Strike has a 15% interest.

Ashton said the ground already had a producing oil field and was held in “very high regard.”

Depending on the availability of a seismic crew, 2D and 3D surveys will be shot within the next six months with drilling to start as soon as targets were established.