Main Feature

PESA Deal Day – Full Lineup Announced

11/05/2026 Posted by Rachel

PESA are excited to announce a full lineup for the upcoming Deal Day on Monday 18th May in Adelaide. Covering a full range of opportunities from conventional to geothermal, Australian to International it is sure to be a great day for investment. For more information about the day, or to register please visit the event page.

Presentation Line up

Prominence Energy

Prominence Energy’s Gawler Craton portfolio positions the Company at the forefront of emerging natural hydrogen and helium exploration, spanning the highly prospective Eyre Peninsula and Northern Hinge Areas.

SA DEM, Prominence Energy and Enzed Energy confirmed for PESA Deal Day

08/04/2026 Posted by Rachel

Monday 18th May sees the return of the PESA Deal Day, a regular event in the PESA calendar that brings together a range of exciting opportunities and the community keen to invest in them.

Currently confirmed speakers for the event include: South Australia’s Department for Energy & Minerals, Prominence Energy, Enzed Energy, Victorian Thermal Energy, TimorGap, and . See below for more information on some of these opportunities.

For more information about the day, please visit the event page or contact Wal Muir or Wendy Ronda (details below).

Technical Spotlight: Taroom Trough

10/03/2026 Posted by Rachel

This month has seen the Taroom Trough hit the headlines as new exploration acreage was awarded and drilling results were announced. We asked Dr Alison Troup, a Queensland based geologist with over fifteen years of extensive experience working on basin research projects across Queensland, to give us the background on this basin.

The Bowen Basin is an elongate Early Permian to Middle Triassic sedimentary basin that extends from Collinsville in central Queensland into northern New South Wales. The whole basin occupies approximately 160,000 km2, with the southern half concealed underneath the Surat Basin.

Cooper-Eromanga Basin: New Exploration Areas Awarded

08/02/2026 Posted by Rachel

On January 29, the Queensland Government announced the appointment of Santos QNT Pty Ltd and Drillsearch Energy Pty Ltd (a 100% subsidiary of Beach Energy) as preferred tenderers for three new gas exploration areas in the Cooper-Eromanga Basins, aimed at boosting supply, reducing energy prices, and supporting regional jobs.

Both Santos and Drillsearch (Beach) have a strong track record of exploration and delivery in the Cooper-Eromanga Basins. Santos holds a dominant and long-standing tenure position in the basin operating the South Australian Cooper Basin Joint Venture (SACBJV) with partners Beach Energy.

Natural hydrogen future to unfold with new drilling

09/12/2025 Posted by Rachel

Natural hydrogen pioneer Gold Hydrogen is aiming to gather enough information from its second round of drilling on its South Australia tenement to design a pilot project towards commercialisation of its hydrogen and helium assets.

The company was the first in Australia to drill natural hydrogen-specific exploration wells in 2023, confirming 100-year-old accidental finds of hydrogen by oil prospectors in the 1930s. It also discovered helium, a nice added value.

Armed with results from the 2023 drill program at two sites east of Minlaton, Ramsay 1 and 2, and having conducted an extensive regional 2D seismic survey since, Gold Hydrogen has identified up to three new well sites for its 2025-26 drill campaign.

AEGC 2025 – Another Success for the Co-Convening Societies

13/10/2025 Posted by Rachel

PESA were thrilled to welcome nearly 1400 participants to the Australian Exploration Geoscience Conference (AEGC) 2025 in Perth at the beginning of September across the exhibition, technical program and training courses offered.

The conference is the largest geoscience conference in Australia and is hosted by AIG, PESA and ASEG. Originally developed in response to member feedback that they would like a collaborative event, the current format evolved from the 2016 ASEG-PESA Geophysics conference.

ADNOC Eyes Santos: A High-Stakes Bid That Could Reshape the Asia-Pac LNG Landscape

08/09/2025 Posted by Helen

In a bold strategic maneuver, Abu Dhabi’s state-owned oil giant, ADNOC—via its international arm XRG, in partnership with ADQ and global private equity firm Carlyle—is pursuing the acquisition of Australia’s Santos Ltd. The A$30 billion (US$18.7–19 billion) all-cash bid, unveiled in mid-June 2025, emerges as the largest takeover proposal in Australian corporate history.

This acquisition aligns with ADNOC’s ambitious goal: becoming a top-five global player in LNG by 2035. Santos’ assets—including Darwin and Barossa LNG projects, a stake in PNG LNG, and significant exploration acreage like Beetaloo Basin—provide essential footholds in the Asia-Pacific region

ADNOC has made...

New perspectives on the sequence stratigraphy of the Early-Middle Triassic of the Bedout Sub-basin

22/07/2025 Posted by Helen

Roisin McGee A* , George Mills A and Simon Sturrock B

- Author Affiliations - A Carnarvon Energy, Perth, WA, Australia. B Strat Trap, Perth, WA, Australia.

* Correspondence to: rmcgee@cvn.com.au

Australian Energy Producers Journal 65, EP24163 https://doi.org/10.1071/EP24163

Accepted: 29 March 2025 Published: 22 May 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of Australian Energy Producers. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

The Bedout Sub-basin, part of the Roebuck Basin on Western Australia’s North West Shelf, has drawn interest since hydrocarbon discoveries at Roc, Dorado and Pavo. Despite these successes, the region remains underexplored.

Do Australian regulations support net zero goals?

01/07/2025 Posted by Helen

One of Australia’s biggest energy challenges is building sufficient long duration energy storage (LDES) to meet market needs for dispatchable power, while also supporting net zero goals.

This challenge will become more urgent as Australia’s coal-fired power stations approach their end of life and close.

But do Australian regulations support the cost-effective clean energy solutions available?

How compressed air can ensure clean, reliable energy

Denison Gas is at the forefront of tackling the LDES challenge by progressing a first of its kind project to repurpose a depleted gas field into compressed air energy storage (CAES) facility.

The renewable energy project is designed to leverage existing infrastructure, unique geology within the Bowen Basin and Central Queensland’s abundant sun to deliver a 600 MW, 12-hour CAES facility.

PESA 2025 Awards

09/06/2025 Posted by Helen

The best bit about our AGM is being able to hand out the awards.

MSA Award

The 2025 PESA Meritorious Service Award (MSA), which recognizes individuals who voluntarily provide exceptional service to PESA at State or Federal level over a significant period of time, has gone to Andrew Riznyczok from the NSW Branch. He will be receiving his award at a Branch event later this year.

Barry Goldstein Award

We received several worthy nominations this year, with the final selection focussing on the key skills of innovation, collaboration and communication.