THE Department of Mines and Petroleum executive director Jeff Haworth was in the Bunbury last week to talk about gas exploration which is set to take place in the South West.
The department is responsible for the management and regulation of onshore petroleum and geothermal industries in WA and Mr Haworth said he had 40 years of experience in the industry.
A gas exploration licence will likely be issued in parts of the City of Bunbury, Busselton and Shires of Capel, Dardanup and Donnybrook-Balingup.
Mr Haworth said Bunbury Energy was the preferred company which were currently undergoing native title negotiations before the department issued a title to commence work.
“We will keep monitoring the situation it is obviously between the native title body and the proponent which can take as long or as short a time as that process takes,” he said.
Mr Haworth said once negotiations were completed they would look at whether circumstances or financials had changed for Bunbury Energy before they issued a title.
As part of the conditions, Bunbury Energy were required to provide a detailed working program and commit to a 2D seismic survey.
“They plan to do that along road reserves then depending on the results there is potential for an exploration well in five years from now," he said.
“That will be totally dependent on what they find and this is a very under explored area as far petroleum resources are concerned and previous studies have found nothing really exciting except Whicher Range.”
There are five gas wells which have been drilled at Whicher Range near Busselton but no company has been able to get an economically viable flow out of the wells.
Mr Haworth said there was one to five trillion cubic feet of gas in the reserve at Whicher Range which CalEnergy was trying to determine whether they could extract an economical flow.
“A trillion cubic feet of gas is enough to power a population of one million people for 20 years and our domestic consumption of gas is such that it would last such a long time,” he said.
The life of a well could be 23 years of drilling, production and decommissioning, during which time Mr Haworth said companies go through 593 approval processes, and before they start production go through 165 individual activities and approvals.
“If you talk to companies they would say we over regulate them but we make no apology while the risks are low and in some cases very low the consequences, as we are aware from the likes of the Gulf of Mexico, are large,” he said.
Have your say: Do you think a gas industry in the South West will benefit the area? Email emma.kirk@fairfaxmedia.com.au.
