Central Petroleum moves closer to gaining Southern Georgina Basin exploration permits

Central Petroleum (ASX: CTP) has taken a step closer to unlocking potential resources in Central Australia by having exploration agreements that cover three Queensland permit applications signed off by Traditional Owners and Land Councils.

The ATPs 909, 911 and 912 cover a vast 3.5 million acres of prime unconventional and conventional acreage in the Southern Georgina Basin.

The agreements will now be submitted to the government of Queensland and the company expects that the permits will be granted within several months.

John Heugh, Central’s managing director, said “the industry focus on unconventional assets generally on a global basis and the intense local interest in Petrofrontier’s unconventional program in the Southern Georgina make this development towards the granting of our permits a real milestone.”

The authorities to prospect are located adjacent to PetroFrontier's (CVE: PFC) permits in the Northern Territory where an active unconventional exploration program is currently examining potential initially at the Baldwin 2 and MacIntyre 2 wells.

The Arthur Creek “hot shale” unit continues into Central’s application areas on the Queensland side of the border with the Northern Territory and the whole of the Lower Arthur Creek Formation is of great interest to Central.

Additional potential in Central’s acreage lies in conventional plays including incision and submarine channels as well as deeper turbidite plays.

Central plans conditionally to conduct seismic and to drill up to three horizontal multi-fracture stimulated wells into the play in 2012 and has its own evaluation underway.

Originally published at: http://www.proactiveinvestors.com.au/companies/news/19903/central-petroleum-moves-closer-to-gaining-southern-georgina-basin-exploration-permits-19903.html