The Bass Basin is between Victoria and Tasmania, adjacent to the Gippsland Basin, where Beach and operator Anzon Australia are partners in the Basker-Manta-Gummy oil and gas project.

Under two deals with Benaris Energy, Beach told the market yesterday it had farmed-in to earn an 80% stake in a defined section of the T-38P permit, by partly paying to drill the Spikey Beach-1 exploration well in the second half of next year.

Also at this time, the company will participate in drilling the Peejay-1 well in T-39P, in return for a 50% stake in the entire permit.

The two permits lie in the south-central portion of the Bass Basin in water depths of less than 100m, Beach said.

The wells will test the oil potential of two relatively simple structural traps at the top of the Eastern View coal measures on the basin’s southern flank.

Beach has assessed the Spikey Beach and Peejay prospects to potentially contain up to 33 and 57 million barrels of recoverable oil, respectively.

“[The farm-ins] continues Beach’s strategy of maintaining exposure to higher reward projects as a balance to the company’s lower risk-reward activities in the Cooper and Surat Basins,” the company said.

Aside from Beach, the other partners in the T-38P farm-out block will be: Cue Energy’s wholly-owned subsidiary Galveston Mining (10%)and Exoil Ltd, while in T/39P Benaris Petroleum will have the remaining 50%.