Last June, Empire took over Tasmanian exploration company Great South Land Mineral and its assets in the onshore Tasmanian Basin.

Project coordinator Geoff Squib told ABC News the company was confident the expensive activity would pay off. He said test drilling could begin as soon as next year.

University of Tasmania study coordinator Dr Clive Burrett told EnergyReview.net in July last year 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 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 at the time.

“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.”