Australia “needs” big oil find

Press, 18 December 1985, Page 27

Australia “needs” big oil find

By

CHRIS PETERS

NZPA staff

correspondent Sydney Australia will pay SA2 billion (?2.42 billion) by 1990 to import oil if it fails to find “big oil” to compensate for the nearing decline in production from Bass Strait, according to an energy analyst The analyst, Mr David Erskine, told the Petroleum Technology Australia Conference in Perth that only the discovery of more big oilfields could prevent serious damage to the economy. Mr Erskine said that only modest discoveries were likely in Bass Strait which produces about 86 per cent of Australia’s oil, and it had been estimated the area’s output would begin falling from 1988.

By 1990 production would have dropped by 100,000

barrels a day from the present average of 450,000. “In other words, Australia will have to produce an additional 40 million barrels a year just to maintain present levels of self-suffi-ciency,” Mr Erskine said.

“The Government will need to find a massive new revenue source of at least ?A2 billion, or 4 per cent of total receipts, to make up for the fall in crude oil excise levy by 1990,” he said.

Mr Erskine said that the recent discovery record did not augur well for the future, and in spite of the record level of onshore exploration, there had not been a big discovery since

the Gippsland Basin’s Fortescue field in 1978.

The onshore discoveries were small and generally less than 10 million barrels, Mr Erskine said. So far, the biggest had been the Jackson field, boasting an estimated 54 million barrels.

Even offshore, the big finds had remained confined to the Bass Strait, with only Jabiru and Challis in the Timor Sea, and Harriet, Talisman and Saladin coming in with medium-sized discoveries.

Mr Erskine saw offshore areas as having the best chances of success for the “big oil,” and the most promising of the regions was the Bonaparte Gulf.