The permit covers an area of 8,276 square kilometres that starts about 90km east of Broome.
The granting of EP 431 and its subsequent transfer is the final title to be granted to the company in the region and now consolidates the entirety of Kimberley Oil’s Canning Basin acreage, the company said.
EP 431 contains the Pictor Structure, a large four-way dip closed anticline clearly defined by seismic. The Pictor Structure as mapped by the seismic data covers about 35 square kilometres.
In 1984 and 1990 two wells were drilled on the Pictor Structure. The 1984 Pictor-1 well drilled by BHP flowed API 45 oil and wet gas from the Nita Formation. Pictor-2 drilled in 1990 by Bridge Oil recorded a similar hydrocarbon column to that encountered in Pictor-1.
Reservoir lithology is fractured dolomites and limestones with low matrix permability. Kimberley Oil said it believed that applying horizontal drilling technology to these reservoir rocks would offer a reasonable chance of allowing economic development of the field.
