The company, as operator, revealed the results this morning of technical work on the 5000sq.km WA-521-P exploration block containing the Labyrinth project in the Rowley Sub-basin north of the famed Roc and Phoenix South discoveries.

 

Carnarvon, which acquired the permit in March 2016, said the Labyrinth prospect, in 200m water depth, had the largest reservoir, the mid-Jurassic Lower Depuch sandstone occurring at about 2700m below sea level.

 

That reservoir is typically of "excellent quality", Carnarvon said, with porosities averaging around 30% and consisting of hundreds of metres of thick deltaic sandstones which, at the Labyrinth location, are overlain with seismically mapped 200-300m sealing facies, indicating an effective seal.

 

The quality of that Lower Depunch reservoir is well known, judging by the number of developments in the vicinity and the peak production rates, including the Perseus gas/condensate field, Fletcher oil field and Reindeer/Caribou gas field.

 

The nearby discovery at Nebo also drisks some of the fundamental petroleum elements with a successful flow test; and Carnarvon says the geoscience data all points to a "relatively high" chance of success at Labyrinth.

 

Resource analysis has resulted in estimates for a number of well-defined prospects and leads with the total unrisked prospective resource of nearly 1.5 billion barrels (Pmean).

 

There's further upside, however, as Carnarvon said further resource potential was also recognised in the four significant prospects in the permit at the Upper Bedout stratigraphic level, consisting of a number of different petroleum plays.

 

All this work boosts Carnarvon's belief that the block is an analogue to the famed Browse Basin which has discovered ultimate recovery of hydrocarbons totalling more than 1Bbbl of oil and condensate, 34 trillion cubic feet of gas and 350MMbbl of LPG within the Icthys, Poseidon, Brecknock/Calliance/Torosa, Prelude, Argus, Cornea, Crown, Crux and Gwydion fields.

 

"Geological similarities with the highly prospective southern Browse Basin are clearly apparent from the early technical work and provide a very exciting analogue to the prospectivity of the WA-521-P permit," Carnarvon managing director Adrian Cook said this morning.

 

More work is ongoing to better define the various play opportunities within the block.