Exploration survey to highlight NSW petroleum potential

A $1.48m seismic survey highlighting the petroleum potential in New South Wales is now underway in the State’s Northwest Slopes and Hunter regions.

The survey is part of the $8m NSW Government funded New Frontiers Initiative, which continues the Government’s program to attract exploration investment to the State.

The 205km high resolution survey will take place around Narrabri, Gunnedah, Tamworth Liverpool Plains, Upper Hunter, Muswellbrook and Singleton using state of the art Vibroseis technology.

This technique creates low impact seismic waves which travel down through the earth and are detected by sensitive monitoring equipment spread out along the surface.

This data allows geoscientists to actually “see” the geological features deep below the surface and determine whether the region has oil and gas potential.

Other projects started this year include:

• The $400,000 Thomson Orogen gravity survey covering 42,000 sq kms in the Tilpa region in far Northwest NSW
• A $140,000 drilling program in the regions looking at the actual architecture of the rocks
• And a teleseismic survey covering parts of the gold rich Bendigo Stawell zone in the far southwest of NSW.

NSW Department of Primary industries geoscientists will evaluate information obtained from this survey with data available to industry by January 2008.

The New Frontiers Initiative follows on from the highly successful $30m, 7 year Exploration NSW program which generated increased exploration interest in NSW, setting the scene for an exploration and development boom in the State.