3D Oil has advised that a renewal application for exploration permit VIC/P57 of the Gippsland Basin has been granted to the Carnarvon Hibiscus Pty Ltd (CHPL), Gippsland Hibiscus Pty Ltd (both wholly owned subsidiaries of Malaysian company Hibiscus Petroleum Berhad) and 3D Oil Joint Venture.

The permit has been optimized to an area dense with high potential leads and prospects including at least one gas prospect.

VIC/P57 Prospectivity Review

A thorough prospectivity review conducted throughout the last 18 months has revealed that VIC/P57 contains significant remaining commercial potential. Six leads and prospects were identified, the highest value of these include the Felix and Pointer prospects.

Felix is a classic, low-risk Upper Latrobe Group oil and gas target, located between the Wirrah discovery and Moonfish field. The Pointer prospect is a Type II AVO supported gas prospect with a Best Estimate Prospective resource of 235 BCF. Pointer is optimally located to rapidly deliver gas to a starved east coast gas market. It is at shallow drilling depths (less than 2000m), situated in shallow water and close to existing infrastructure.

VIC/P57 Work Programme
 
The upcoming technical program is carefully designed to mature the Felix and Pointer prospects to drill-ready, while assessing the potential for additional gas prospectivity within the deep and poorly understood stratigraphy of the permit.  As such, the minimum guaranteed work-program, to be fulfilled within the first three years of the Renewal Term includes 230km² of modern, state-of-the-art seismic reprocessing accompanied by Geological and Geophysical studies. The purpose of the reprocessing will be three-fold;  

1. To determine the most likely structural configuration and accurate oil & gas volume of the Felix Prospect, 
2. Provide a clearer understanding of the Pointer AVO anomaly and,
3. Assess the Emperor sub-group stratigraphy (not able to be imaged adequately by the current dataset) for additional gas prospects.  

Technological advances in processing techniques over the last six years should result in significantly improved data quality within VIC/P57. According to well-established service provider CGG, who are currently undertaking the Gippsland ReGeneration Reprocessing project, there are many areas of improvement that will undoubtedly result in enhanced imaging of the sub-surface. These techniques have recently been applied in the eastern Gippsland Basin, at the previously poorly understood Dory gas discovery. Broader bandwidth, less noise, a significantly improved velocity model and more sophisticated migration algorithms have resulted in a dramatic improvement in imaging compared with previous attempts. ExxonMobil are planning on drilling Hairtail-1 and Bald Fish-1 at the Dory prospect in Q3 2018.