Tamboran Resources is working to progress to a development of its vast low carbon dioxide natural gas asset in the Northern Territory’s Beetaloo Basin.

The Company holds net 2C contingent gas resources of about 1.5 trillion cubic feet (TCF) and is targeting first production by the end of 2025. Its operations are being designed with new technologies to support the Company’s ambition to be a Net Zero Scope 1 and 2 emission gas producer from the commencement of commercial production.

This includes opportunities including fully electrified drilling rigs and methane detection on all equipment including pipelines. Late last year, Tamboran completed the acquisition of Origin Energy’s Beetaloo Basin gas assets, making it the largest acreage holder and operator in the region.

The Company’s development plans have been bolstered by the Northern Territory Government’s opening up of production approvals for onshore gas, after it successfully implemented each of the Pepper Inquiry’s 135 recommendations.

Joel Riddle, Chief Executive Officer at Tamboran, told Petroleum Australia the finalisation of the recommendations provides a pathway for operators in the Beetaloo to move into development, and described it as potentially the most detailed regulatory process that has ever been conducted in the industry.

He said: “It gives us a lot of confidence as a Company to invest hundreds of millions and put our plans in place for a large development in the Beetaloo.”

Tamboran’s Beetaloo strategy will be a phased development, starting with near-term opportunities to supply the NT domestic gas market before expanding supply to East Coast gas markets, where Tamboran has an existing supply agreement with Origin Energy.

Tamboran then aims to ramp up production and supply up to 1,000 terajoules a day to the East Coast and/or to overseas markets via Tamboran’s proposed NTLNG development at the Middle Arm Sustainable Development Precinct in Darwin Harbour. Tamboran recently secured exclusivity over 170 hectares for a proposed 6.6-million-tonne per year LNG facility.

Riddle noted the Company was also considering electrifying LNG trains at its proposed Middle Arm facilities, and saw an opportunity to connect its electrified equipment in the Beetaloo with renewable energy.

He added: “While electrification greatly reduces our carbon footprint, we are also looking to be a part of a carbon capture project in Middle Arm where we can safely store any residual carbon from our operations.”

A unique advantage Tamboran will bring to its operations is the H&P super spec FlexRig® Flex Rig 3, the first rig to be imported into Australia in the last 20 years. When it becomes operational in the next few months, it will be the largest and most powerful rig in the country, and the only one capable of drilling three to four thousand metres horizontally in the depths of the Mid Velkerri “B Shale” formation, the source rock of the gas.

A key benefit of the rig is that it will allow Tamboran to cover up to three to four times as many reserves in a single hole than rigs currently used in Australia, making the drilling process about 50 per cent more efficient.

This will be a primary driver in reducing Tamboran’s well costs and making them more economic, as well as limiting ground disturbance and land impacts from drilling.

Tamboran also has the option to bring four additional rigs into the country, allowing it to scale up its operations.

With a regulatory environment that requires operators to offset carbon, the Beetaloo has strong potential compared to other gas deposits in Australia due to its low carbon dioxide content.

Shale gas from the Beetaloo has at least five times less carbon dioxide (about 4 per cent) than the average of around 15 to 20 per cent in large, undeveloped,  conventional fields offshore northern Australia.

Riddle said that gas, particularly gas with low carbon dioxide, had a strong role to play in the clean energy transition, not just by 2050 but possibly decades beyond that. He explained: “You have a market in Asia that consumes their energy via coal-fired electricity, so displacing that coal with low carbon dioxide gas from the Beetaloo is one of the biggest climate initiatives on the planet.

“To put this into perspective, if you take the first phase of our LNG project – which is 6.6 million tonnes of LNG – and you assume that gas displaces coal, that would be equivalent to 16 million tonnes of carbon emission reduction per year.

“This is equivalent to approximately 4 per cent of all of Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions. “Our project moves the needle around reducing carbon emissions and the Australian government is very focused on that.”