Outlining the acreage release at APPEA’s annual conference in Adelaide today, Geoscience Australia’s Jenny Maher said a data room would be opened to potential bidders in Canberra mid-May.

The areas range from frontier to mature status, including six eligible for the frontier exploration tax incentive, which allows explorers to write-off 150% of exploration costs for work undertaken in designated areas.

Acreage is available in the Bonaparte Basin in the NT and WA; the Money Shoal Basin in the NT; the Browse, Canning and Carnarvon Basins in WA; and Victoria’s Gippsland Basin.

Addressing delegates to the conference, Federal Resources Minister Ian Macfarlane said he believed Australia has turned the corner in terms of explorer interest.

“I agree with the views expressed in the (APPEA) Strategic Leaders’ Report on the need to encourage exploration in frontier areas, especially for oil,” Macfarlane said.

“It is obvious that global explorers now clearly consider Australia a big gas opportunity.”

The uptake of acreage had risen every year from less than 50% in 2002-03 to 90% for the 2005 release, according to John Hartwell, head of the federal Department of Industry, Tourism and Resources’ resources division.

Around 52 bids were received for 20 of the 22 areas on offer in the last release round, while borrowings of pre-competitive data from Geoscience Australia by explorers to define drill locations had tripled between 2004 and 2006.

The trend has continued into 2007, with the same amount of data borrowed in the first two months of the calendar year than was borrowed during all of 2005.

Bids for 17 of the new areas close on October 17, 2006, with the remaining 17 areas due to close on April 17, 2008.

All bids are assessed under the work program bidding system and will be awarded for an initial term of six years.