New petroleum exploration opportunities available in Queensland

The Queensland Government has released 1459 km² of land for petroleum exploration as part of the Unite and Recover for Queensland Jobs plan.

PLR2020-2

Five petroleum exploration areas have been released across the Bowen and Surat Basins:

• one 77 km² area (10 blocks) located 17 km south-east of Injune with coal seam gas potential
• one 37 km² area (12 blocks) located 29 km south-east of Injune with conventional or unconventional gas potential
• one 154 km² area (50 blocks) located 32 km south-west of Injune with coal seam gas potential
• one 357 km² area (117 blocks) located 25 km south-west of Moonie with conventional or unconventional gas potential
• one 834 km² area (275 sub-blocks) located 50 km south-west of Moonie with conventional or unconventional gas potential

Source: Queensland Department of Natural Resources, Mines and Energy.

Tenders for the new areas opened on 18 June 2020 and close on 3 September 2020. Preferred tenderers must comply with land access and native title requirements and, depending on any applicable land use constraints, meet other approval requirements before commencing exploration activities.

The five exploration areas are in addition to those identified in Queensland’s 2020 Exploration Program. For details on the earlier releases, see our article on the Queensland Government unlocking more than 7,000 km² of coal and gas exploration acreage in the Bowen and Surat Basins. As discussed in our recent alert, these areas have re-opened for tender with the coal exploration tenders closing on 25 June 2020 and the gas exploration tenders closing on 7 July 2020.

For further details on the tender process for any of the exploration areas, please contact Andrew Corkhill or Leanne O’Neill.