The junior explorer said the NWS permits – WA-359-P, WA-360-P and WA-361-P – were immediately adjacent to the Woodside-operated North West Shelf Venture’s Rankin, Goodwin and Perseus gas fields.
Under the farm-in, MEO will earn operatorship and a 60% stake in each of the blocks, by agreeing to fund seismic and drilling costs.
The terms would also see MEO upgrade this interest to 70% if the company decides to wholly fund the cost of one well in any of these permits.
But if any of the partners choose to contribute 10% of the costs, then MEO’s interest will remain at 60%.
MEO said it had identified many oil and gas leads after reviewing the 2D and 3D data, which covers a large portion of the permits.
One large feature, known as Zeus, has similar high amplitude bright spots to the reservoir sections of the adjacent Perseus gas field, according to MEO.
“At this stage, the most obvious significant potential appears to be in WA-361-P, immediately northwest of the Perseus gas field and on the northern flank of the Goodwyn gas field where a thick sequence of interpreted Legendre shoreface and shallow marine sandstones are present in the Keast Graben [formation],” the company said.
“A potential stratigraphic trap, Zeus, has been identified, which is thought to be a similar play and analogous to the Perseus gas field [12 trillion cubic feet] and to the new Woodside Persephone-1 discovery on the eastern flank of the North Rankin gas field.”
Post farm-in, MEO will have a 60% stake in the three North West Shelf permits, while Cue Energy will have 20%. Other partners are Exoil and Gascorp.
In other company news, MEO said the West Atlas jack-up rig was drilling its Heron-2 appraisal well in NT-P68 ahead at a depth of 990m, with a drilling rate of 14m per hour.
