Bendall has been pushing his former company Great South Land Minerals (GSLM) since 1977, when he said he saw "a vision of large structures, onshore Tasmania, filled with oil and gas”.
In April, he told EnergyReview.net from Los Angeles that his company's proposed merger with Empire Energy from Kansas had passed the 90% mark, thus avoiding any capital gains implications for investors.
Last week, Bendall said a four-year University of Tasmania study, backed by the Federal Government, was “encouraging for our company and our 100%-owned Australian subsidiary Great South Land Minerals Limited (GSLM)”.
“The undiscovered potential resource estimation was based on a calculated generative potential of 150 billion barrels with a Generation Accumulation Efficiency of 7% and an average 31% recovery factor from in-place petroleum."
Empire bought GSLM last month and currently has about 76 million shares of an authorised 100 million shares.
University of Tasmania study coordinator Dr Clive Burrett told EnergyReview.net that his research had confirmed the Permian Tasmanian Basin as a highly prospective frontier basin.
It was comparable in size and geological history to the very productive basins of the Cooper Basin and of Oman in the Middle East, he said.
“The basin contains the famous Tasmanite Oil Shale, which is qualitatively one of the best petroleum source rocks in the world, and which we know has generated low-sulphur, heavy-oil seeps in the south of the basin,” Burrett said.
“The Tasmania Basin overlies a fold-thrust system that contains sedimentary sequences similar in age, maturity and rock sequences to the Appalachians, USA.
“The Ordovician-age limestone contains wet-gas and is very similar to the Blackriver and Trenton Groups of North America. The fold belt includes domes up to six miles across with half-mile closures comparable in size to structures in the Permian Basin of Texas and the Long Beach Field of California."
Bendall said now initial research had been completed the company intended to start an aggressive exploration program targeting areas identified in the study and in the last seismic survey.
“We are optimistic we will discover economic petroleum in 2005-2006. However, everyone involved should still be aware this is a frontier basin with no current production and has the high risk and uncertainty of any new undeveloped area," he said.
