The company will begin drilling in about 10 days, with the spudding of the West Seahorse-3 appraisal/development well. The Wardie-1 exploration well will follow.

The newly built West Triton jack-up rig will drill both wells from one location to reduce rig move time and provide cost-effective commercialisation of the Wardie prospect in the event of a discovery.

The Wardie prospect was revealed in September last year by a detailed mapping and depth conversion analysis.

Latest mapping indicates Wardie may in fact be larger than West Seahorse, which is interpreted to contain between 5.8 and 10.3 million barrels.

3D said the remaining funds would be used for the completion of a front-end engineering design study and for general working capital.

VIC/P57 is on the northern margin of the Gippsland Basin in water depths less than 40m.

The area is lightly drilled, containing only four exploration wells, with only one drilled in the last 25 years.