If reports are accurate billionaire Viktor Vekselberg, Russia's third richest man and one of the founders of the TNK-BP joint venture, owns around 12% of Falcon Oil & Gas, which is now drilling the first of three wells with Origin Energy and Sasol.

US frac kingpin Aubrey McClendon, who founded Chesapeake Energy and was reportedly close to a deal with Pangaea Resources, was prepared to spend billions trying to unlock the shale plays of the Northern Territory.

Even Inpex has arrived in the wider basin, an unusual play for the Japanese firm in Australia.

It's all putting the spotlight on the potential of the Velkerri Shale, but despite the fact it has around 600,000 acres (2428sq.km) Empire has so far failed to trouble traders on the Australian Securities Exchange with its $7 million market capitalisation.

The company's market cap belies its US funding with Macquarie Bank or the 9.9 trillion cubic feet or 200 million barrel P50 prospective resource potential it has defined in the NT.

Since selling out of its mineral sands interests and moving into oil and gas a decade ago Empire has moved through a variety of geographies and plays, with its latest focus a low-cost incremental development targeting the Mississippi Lime play, but simmering away in the background Empire has been putting together a 60,000sq.km package in the Northern Territory and moving it through the native title hoops.

Right now Empire is taking a slow cautious approach in the Greater Macarthur Basin, focusing on low cost geoscience, to better understand the geological jigsaw.

Empire executive chairman Bruce McLeod told Energy News the company is really waiting for the next uptick in the cycle before it spends big, but it will be quite happy to benefit from any nearology of its neighbours to rub off on it.

The NT is very much a long-term proposition, McLeod said.

"Most of our blocks are on Aboriginal lands, so we have got to a point with the NT government and the locals over the past two and a half years about the best way to develop this," he said.

"On that landholder basis we are looking pretty comfortable, We want to get our three largest northern tenements in train. We have been able to gather some data from them, and we have the two tenements granted by the Northern Land Council, in the Beetaloo Basin, where we have a reasonable resource potential mapped and there is a pipeline running through it."

Empire sees shorter-term potential in focusing in the Velkerri formation within EP 187 because of that pipeline.

Its strategy is to shoot seismic to confirm the basin architecture and then drill further stratigraphic wells to evaluate the potential of the shale, before drilling into the oil window between 1000-3000m.

The presence of the gas pipeline makes gas a prize than can be quickly developed, although oil would be nice too.

EP 187 contains about one third of the mapped Velkerri Shale in Empire's wider portfolio, with total potential for 1.2Tcf and 24MMbbl over the full 600,000 acres.

"That pipeline access is the key," McLeod said.

"People just forget how big everything is up there. It's easy to draw pipelines on a map, but the distances involved are massive, and costly. So, having that pipeline running through where we are is a bit of an advantage."

Empire drilled a number of shallow stratigraphic wells on the edges of the basin last year to assess the shale's characteristics, such as total organic content.

There were no real showstoppers or surprises from the drilling given the relatively shallow depths, but the real test will be when Empire steps deeper into the basin to drill the Valkerri Shale and the underlying Barney Creek formations in locations where Empire believes that hydrocarbons have migrated from the source kitchen, which sits within its leases.

The Barney Creek sits below the Velkerri Shale and is the most abundant shale target in the McArthur Basin.

Volumetrically it is the most significant target and it is the only formation in the Greater McArthur Basin, including the Beetaloo Sub-basin that has delivered commercial quantities of gas in wells drilled to date.

Empire has secured 80% of McArthur Basin Central Trough, and has mapped the shale up to 500 metres thick.

It sees a P50 prospective resource potential for 8.7Tcf and 174MMbbl.

The trick will be finding out where hydrocarbons have migrated to.

"Some of the TOCs that have been seen have been spectacular results, so it is now a case of better understanding how the basin has formed and to see what has been left," McLeod explained.

"It then gets down to depths and pressures, but from what we can see it all sits at a nice depth for pressure, and if it has been pushed around too much over the last few million years it might have lost some of its hydrocarbons, but if it has behaved it will be sitting there in the ground."

The limiting factor is cash.

Empire doesn't have a lot of it, although the company is backed by Macquarie Bank, but the Millionaire's Factory would prefer Empire focus on its US project, which are more predictable in terms of returns.

McLeod said the company was examining funding alternatives, and is open to partnerships as it seems to work through its tenements systematically.

He said that Santos had spent a "ridiculous" amount drilling last year's Tanumbirini-1 and seems happy with the result, which would appear to vindicate Empire's approach so far.

Tanumbirini-1 was drilled in EP 161, west of Empire's permits, and was one of the deepest onshore wells to have been drilled in the NT, reaching a total depth of 3945m.

The initial Tanumbirini-1 well results were described as extremely encouraging.

Multiple thick intervals of organic-rich rock were intersected at the primary objective Mid-Valkerrie level, accompanied by mud gas shows over 500m.

The well has been cased and suspended for re-entry in later this year.

Between Tanumbirini, Falcon's drilling, and permits explored by Armour Energy that flowed gas at three million cubic feet per day at the Cow Lagoon project, McLeod said it would be a case of slow and steady wins the race for Macarthur Basin explorers while plays are derisked and a market develops for any gas.

He says drilling for Empire is some time off unless it can find funding for the expected $6-7 million well, and it will be important to understand the dynamics of frontier unconventional exploration.

"Even companies like Santos and Origin really don't have the experience in this type of environment, so we need the experience out of the US, people who have been pioneers in the industry," he said.

"Statoil really didn't have a clue. They were used to drilling big wells, with lots of seismic and lots of support services, but when you get into the outback of Australia, and you are in the middle of nowhere."

Statoil drilled five wells in the southern Georgina Basin, which found hydrocarbons in the Arthur Creek hot shale but failed to flow.

He's happy with the company's interests in the US, another slow and steady oil farming project, partially joint ventured with Pryme Energy.

"What we have put together looks pretty good, so we just need to drill it now," he said.

"We have picked up some pretty good land at a pretty cheap price, and we can drill several hundred wells there. Hopefully, it works.

Drilling should start in July.

The Oklahoma project has leased at a fraction of the costs that would have been required two to three years earlier.

Up to 10 wells are planned, and will hopefully result in shallow successes that can be replicated across the project.

Further, the almost 72% of the company's production is hedged through to the end of 2017 averaging around $75 per barrel and $4.30 per million cubic feet.

Other programs in Kansas are on hold until prices recover, and Empire's leases in New York State have been rendered effectively worthless by the state's decision to ban fraccing.