Magellan surrendered the PEP 328225 licence, effective today. The company has held the 11,829 square kilometre permit since November 2003. It had until today to commit to acquiring, processing and reprocessing seismic data.
The company said in its recent quarterly report that it had been searching for partners to fund the drilling of a well, but now it appears not to have found any.
It is understood Crown Minerals is waiting for the outcome of its High Court case against Bounty before formally opening bidding for the 40 identical Great South Basin blocks, each measuring 80km by 113km, which it announced last December.
However, Crown Minerals group manager Adam Feeley told ERN today that as far as he was concerned, the blocks offer was already open.
“We have been talking to a vast number of companies, most of which already have the seismic data acquired for us recently (by the Pacific Titan vessel) and are already assessing their likely bids,” he told ERN.
Feeley thought the bidding process would probably close in November or December.
In the Wellington High Court yesterday, Justice Alan MacKenzie reserved his decision after two-and-a-half days of listening to arguments from Bounty and Crown Minerals regarding the revocation of Bounty’s PEP 38215 lease last year.
Alan Galbraith, QC, for Crown Minerals, had said Bounty did not have the financial resources to drill the Great South Basin and hoped to attract bigger partners if it held on to the permit, while Bounty argued it was not treated fairly or given the chance to attract a major farminee before its permit was revoked.
Bounty also claimed Crown Minerals was not interested in juniors being involved in deepwater exploration and wanted to attract big players to the Great South Basin – a basin managing director Tom Fontaine estimated could contain hydrocarbon reserves worth about $US800 billion ($A1.04 trillion).
