The company told the market this morning that National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator had awarded it 1,006sq.km on the southern side of the basin, near to the world class Kingfish oil field.

3D said it had applied to acquire the permit due to advances in seismic reprocessing techniques, which it believes could reveal "significant hydrocarbon accumulations."

"The rationale for the acreage acquisition of VIC/P74 is based on the likely significant enhancement of 3D seismic in the basin as a result of reprocessing being undertaken by service company CGG," 3D said.

VIC/P74 also contains the Omeo gas and condensate discovery.

Separately, 3D Oil has also filed an environmental plan for public comment with regulator the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority for its  its 3D Sauropod seismic survey offshore Western Australia in the Roebuck Basin in EP WA-527-P.

The permit is within the Bedout Sub-basin and 80 kilometres northeast of last year's Dorado-1 well, which hit 171 metres of net oil pay.

3D has been looking hard at its permit ever since that discovery, saying last year the success in the underexplored area between the Carnarvon and Browse basins demonstrated the potential of its own area.

It said yesterday the survey is a typical one, with no unique or unusual equipment or operations proposed.

The acquisition area spans 3,500sq.km and the wider operations area 6,000sq.km, which is for the purpose of line turns, run outs, seismic testing and support activities.

At its closest it will be 120 kilometres north of Eighty Mile Beach and 230km west of Broome in water depths between 95 metres to 172m.

It will involve a single seismic survey vessel which will tow a seismic source array of 3,090 cubic inches in water 5m-10m deep and will use compressed air to emit pulses that will be received by up to 12 hydrophone streamers, each 7,000m long and spaced 75m apart, towed at a depth of 15m.

The vessel will travel at 4.5 knots and discharge every five seconds, acquiring data in a racetrack pattern, 3D said.

The survey will take a maximum of 60 days to acquire, between January and April next year or the year after.

The precise timing, the company said, will be subject to vessel availability, weather and other considerations "and will take into account the seasonality of environmental sensitivities, where practicable".

It's another step towards proving up its acreage after last year it began reprocessing of open file data of the 100% owned permit in hopes of finding a Dorado lookalike.

"The discovery of significant oil and gas-condensate at Dorado-1 has materially reshaped the existing geological interpretation of the Bedout Sub-basin," 3D said last August.

It illustrates that the Lower Triassic play can host significant accumulations of hydrocarbons within multiple reservoir intervals, it suggested, with the junior pointing to an article from then-Carnarvon Petroleum joint venture partner and operator Quadrant Energy in the APPEA journal last year on the "excellent quality oil-prone source rocks".

3D has also said it is looking beyond the Lower Triassic to other play levels including a series of apparent Paleozoic carbonate build-ups in the east of its acreage and multiple targets within the shallower Jurassic section. 

Last year it gave a total best estimate for the Salamander, Jaubert and Whaleback prospects of 349 million barrels of oil. 

Last year it conducted review of the open-file 2D seismic data available in the permit and was able to identify a potential erosional channel system within the western side of the acreage, similar to Dorado.

It said last year it had identified at least 15 prospective leads across the permit. 

In May NOPSEMA also granted permission for 3D to conduct a 3D seismic survey in its offshore Victoria permit T/49P in the Otway Basin, facing a backlash from Tasmanian Greens senators Peter Whish-Wilson and Nick McKim, who condemned the seismic program.

"The Greens will stand up for fishers and coastal communities in Tasmania and around the country. That's why we have drafted a private members bill to ban all new offshore oil and gas exploration and extraction to be introduced into the new parliament," they said.