At the South Australian Department for Energy and Mining, they were toasting a milestone anniversary of the Acrasia 1 oil discovery last week.
The opening up the South Australian Cooper Basin for competitive bidding 20-years ago paid off when Stuart Petroleum, one of the new generation of explorers, kicked off a new phase of activity in the basin by making their first commercial oil discovery at Acrasia-1.
The expiry of 40-year old petroleum exploration licences over the Basin in February 1999, together with the new Petroleum Act 2000 enabled the South Australian government to use phased acreage releases to attract a new generation of explorers to the basin.
Three major competitive tender acreage releases were held in 1998, 1999 and 2000, attracting huge interest and multimillion dollar bids. It was the most significant structured release of onshore Australian acreage in the petroleum industry’s history and changed the makeup of Australia’s onshore exploration industry through a number of ‘company-making’ discoveries.
Since 1998, ten acreage released staged by the department have generated:
- $560 million in royalties,
- $8.4 billion in gross sales,
- $706 million in guaranteed drilling and seismic surveys in successful work program bids and $262 million of non-guaranteed work (both in in 2021 dollars),
- 37 land access conjunctive agreements signed with native title claimants/holders,
- sharply increased oil success rates (Fig 1) due to new approaches to exploration in under-explored parts of the basin and improved 3D seismic technology, and
- increased gas supply-side competition.
