"Both Tarantula and Elegans have the potential to be quite a bit larger than the other recent gas discoveries we’ve made, so they are very significant," Streitberg said.

"There are a number of new contracts that we want to try and capture which will require us to increase our production capability by developing more of our own resources which could include these two discoveries."

Last month, wireline logging of the Tarantula-1 Sidetrack-1 exploration well in Perth Basin production licence L11 confirmed gas saturations in two zones over a gross interval of 32m between 3228m and 3279m measured depth. About 10m of this was interpreted to be "good-to-excellent quality reservoir sands".

At Elegans, the forward program is to evaluate the results of three wells drilled to date to determine the commerciality of the accumulation.

While the development schemes will be very different, Streitberg said both finds will be a valuable addition to Arc’s portfolio.

"Tarantula is a high-pressure, high flow rate discovery that can be easily developed from a single well," he said.

"It has very high value on a capital return basis, but has defined a new play we hadn’t really anticipated and that has regional ramifications as far as the gas exploration program is concerned.

"Elegans will require a more intensive development program, with a lot more wells to get it into production.

"We’ll pursue both projects in parallel and make a decision probably early next year on which development scenario provides the best commercial outcome."

Progress on Tarantula and Elegans will no doubt help the company re-focus after disappointing results this week from the Evandra-1 exploration well – the first to be drilled on the basis of the recently-acquired Denison 3D seismic survey.

Wireline logging data confirmed oil saturations over a gross interval of 20m, of which 11m was interpreted to have the potential to produce oil.

The same data indicated the reservoir quality to be poor.

"Evandra was an important data point for us," he said.

"The biggest uncertainty before we drilled was whether the reservoir quality would be as good as at the Hovea and Jingemia fields.

"Our predictive model told us there was a chance that it wouldn’t be as well developed and that turned out to be the case."

Streitberg said production testing will confirm the full extent of Evandra’s reserves.

Earlier this month, Arc was given the green light by the Supreme Court of Western Australia for its planned merger with Voyager Energy.

Voyager shareholders and option holders will have the final say on the merger in September.