Tamboran has applied to the government's New Zealand Petroleum and Minerals for a long thin block covering 3011 square kilometres of land bordered by Westech Energy's lease PEP 38346 to the north, Tag Oil's PEP 38349 (Boar Hill) to the east and New Zealand Energy's PEP 52694 (Castlepoint) to the south.
If the Ministry of Economic Development unit grants Tamboran its application, the lease will be known as PEP 53787.
Tamboran is hoping to capitalise on the worldwide shale gas boon with plans for a $A100-150 million initial public offering next year.
The privately held company, co-formed by former Eastern Star Gas director Patrick Elliott and geoscientist David Falvey in 2009, holds prospective shale gas areas or applications covering 31 million acres in Australia's Northern Territory, Ireland and Botswana.
It holds one exploration permit in the Pedirka Basin, NT and one permit in Ireland's Lough-Allen Basin. The company also has six exploration permit applications in the Beetaloo and Ngalia Basins in NT pending, along with one permit application in Botswana.
Each of these areas is known to have large volumes of shales with characteristics that are analogous to the successful shale basins in the United States.
