The junior has a number of fingers in the pie, with tenements and interests spread from north of Geraldton down past Lancelin and a number of planned activities on its plate.

Perhaps foremost in the company's mind at the moment is the imminent flow testing of AWE's Senecio-3 well in its Waitsia discovery.

The discovery was made in September last year and was touted by AWE as potentially the largest conventional gas discovery onshore WA since the 1960s.

"Activity in the Perth Basin continues to gather momentum and 2015 is shaping up as an important year for the exciting new Waitsia gas discovery," AWE managing director Bruce Clement said in the company's December quarterly.

"The Senecio and Waitsia gas fields represent a major growth opportunity for AWE with combined gross 2C contingent resources of 360 billion cubic feet of gas and substantial upside potential in gross 3C contingent resources of 1.3 trillion cubic feet of gas."

Norwest and EP368 joint venture partner Empire Oil and Gas are hoping that some of this upside might be present in a possible extension of the play into their 600sq.km permit, just to the east of Waitsia.

Empire, as the operator of EP368, is thus planning an airborne gravity gradiometry imaging survey over the permit and the adjoining EP426 tenement during this quarter.

In addition, the JV has plans to pursue other prospective trends in the region, including North Erregulla which extends between both permits and is the site of a 3m oil column which was discovered in the Wagina reservoir.

A bit further south is the meat in Norwest's sandwich for 2015, with the Arrowsmith and Xanadu prospects set to make strides.

First cab off the rank will be the drilling of the company's conventional Xandau-1 well in the offshore TP/15 permit, to be drilled from onshore via a deviated well.

Spudding of the well is scheduled for late in the third quarter/early Q4, with third parties currently in the data room for a farm-out of the prospect, to be conducted late in Q2.

Xanadu is thought to be potentially eight times bigger than Arc Energy's 2002 Hovea discovery which was contained in the same play.

Located in the adjoining eastern EP413 permit is Arrowsmith, where Norwest plans to drill its Arrowsmith-3 well at the end of the year/beginning of 2016 to determine the viability of a full-field development.

Before that happens however, the company needs to fine-tune where the well will be drilled, with a 3D seismic survey planned for Q1/Q2, subject to regulatory approvals.

Norwest is not the only player with big plans for 2015, with Empire planning to drill two wells this year, paying attention to its Red Gully prospect in the south, where a recent independent reserve assessment showed a major upgrade to 2P gas reserves, rising by 46% to 14.53PJ.

The company has another couple of wells on the table for 2016 as well.

In addition, Transerv Energy and Alcoa are waiting on a rig to drill their Warro-5 and 6 wells in the Warro gas field, and expect to be able to get their hands on it about mid-year, while Warrego Energy has begun work on a 3D data acquisition over EP 469 to appraise and develop the West Erregulla tight gas prospect.

West Erregulla has been assessed to contain an estimated 185 billion cubic feet of gas in place with the potential for 3 trillion cubic feet of unconventional upside.

According to a Department of Mines and Petroleum report issued in February last year, the amount of success in the Perth Basin has been on the rise since 2000 with the advancement and application of 3D seismic technology.

"Before 2001, the success rate of wells drilled in the northern part of the basin was about one in ten. Since then, further discoveries and the application of 3D seismic surveys onshore have increased the rate of success," the ‘Summary of Petroleum Prospectivity' report said.

The DMP said that discoveries like Arc's Hovea and Origin Energy's Jingemia in the early noughties sparked renewed interest in the Perth Basin and that activity had been revitalised in recent years.

According to the department, a majority of the known hydrocarbons lie in the northern part of the basin, where Norwest holds its focus.