“Some exciting prospects are coming to light,” Origin exploration manager Rob Willink told PetroleumNews.net from Brisbane.
He said these included prospects in the Northland Basin blocks PEP 38618 and 38619, in particular in the area where Origin acquired 3D seismic last year.
Origin and Austrian firm OMV hold equal stakes in PEPs 38618 and 38619 with Origin as operator.
The company believes its offshore Canterbury Basin licences PEP 38262 and 38264 are highly prospective, Willink said. Indeed, it believes they are superior to the Great South Basin acreage grabbed late last year by consortiums led by ExxonMobil, OMV and Greymouth Petroleum.
Origin has already identified some structures off Canterbury that it believes could contain 100 million-plus barrels of oil or several trillion cubic feet of gas – the quantities of hydrocarbons needed to support deepwater exploration, according to Willink.
Some “very large” prospects, including Caravel and Carrack, have been matured to drillable status in Origin’s Canterbury blocks, both of which are 100%-held by Origin.
“Carrack has a mapped closure of 200 square kilometres –that’s huge,” Willink said.
“We will need a deepwater rig for our Canterbury wells and they are not that easy to secure. At this stage, drilling there is likely to start by mid-2009.”
Origin is required to commit to drilling its Northland permits by mid-2008 and to one Canterbury block by late this year.
“We are not irrevocably committed to drill but we are already in discussions with various rig contractors to secure rigs,” he said.
The jack-up Ensco Rig 107 – currently drilling the three Kupe development wells for operator Origin and partners – could be used to drill in PEP 38619, but a semi-submersible would be needed for PEP 38618.
The Northland prospects had not yet been formally named but two of them provide coincident reservoir targets at Pliocene, Miocene and Base Oligocene levels. In addition, there is seismic amplitude support for the presence of hydrocarbons in these, Willink said.
