Carnarvon Petroleum today provided an update on the farm out of the Buffalo project to Advance Energy.

On 17 December 2020, Carnarvon announced a binding agreement with Advance where they will acquire up to a 50% interest in the Buffalo project by funding the drilling of the Buffalo-10 well up to US$20m on a free carry basis.

Development funding will be sourced by the newly formed incorporated joint venture from third party lenders with any additional funding requirements (on top of that provided by third party lenders) will be provided by Advance as an interest free loan.

Carnarvon Managing Director and CEO, Mr Adrian Cook, said:
“I am pleased to see Advance making progress on their funding activities in order to complete their farm-in to the Buffalo project.

We look forward to completing our transaction with Advance shortly and then drilling the Buffalo-10 well later this year”.

The Buffalo Redevelopment Project

Carnarvon was awarded the WA-523-P permit, which included the previously developed Buffalo field, in May 2016 for an initial six-year term. The Field was discovered by BHP in 1996 and subsequently developed using four wells drilled from a small, unmanned wellhead platform installed in 25 metres water depth, tied back to an FPSO. Production commenced in December 1999 at production rates up to approximately 50,000 stb/d and terminated in November 2004 after the production of 20.5 MMstb of highly-undersaturated, light oil (53°API) from the Jurassic-age Elang Formation. All existing facilities and wells were decommissioned and removed prior to Carnarvon being awarded the permit.

Carnarvon initially focussed its technical work on reprocessing of the 3D seismic dataset using state-of-the-art full waveform inversion (FWI) technology. This work supports the interpretation of a significant attic oil accumulation remaining after the original development, based on sub-optimal positioning of early wells using poorly processed seismic data. Reservoir modelling has been conducted using the latest structural interpretation and available well data, including an extensive history-matching effort to calibrate model/well performance to production rates and water-cut development (governed by strong aquifer drive) observed during the original production period.

Based on this work, independently audited volumetric estimates of contingent resources in the Buffalo oil field are 31.1 million barrels (2C) with low estimates of 15.3 million barrels (1C) and high estimates of 47.8 million barrels (3C) - Refer to Carnarvon Petroleum’s ASX announcement on 28 August 2017.

KeyFacts Energy: Carnarvon Petroleum Australia country profile