Carnarvon Petroleum Ltd has announced that the company’s Dorado development work is continuing as planned with engineering and pre-Front End Engineering Design (FEED) work streams being advanced, despite market conditions associated with the COVID-19. The cost of this work is minimal relative to the overall cost of the field development.
Carnarvon’s Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Adrian Cook said the Dorado field, located in the Bedout Basin in offshore Western Australia, is a high quality asset that is expected to have a low cost of production.
“While the current market conditions provide challenges for business, progressing key assets like the Dorado field ensures Carnarvon and the operator have important options for a timely development in the future.”
Carnarvon’s very strong financial position, with A$119 million in cash at 31 December 2019, ensures it is well placed to progress and support the operator of the Dorado development.”
Work on the refinement of prospects for exploration drilling within the Keraudren 3D seismic area is also continuing.
In February this year, Carnarvon received the first preliminary data set from the 2019 Keraudren 3D seismic survey.
The data indicated that the Keraudren 3D has achieved the objective of providing superior quality data over Dorado, and that this will be important for better defining the development of Dorado, and establishing high quality exploration drilling targets in the survey area.
The Keraudren 3D data was acquired using a new seismic methodology designed to enhance the quality of the data over the four targeted reservoir intervals discovered and appraised in the three Dorado wells drilled in 2018 and 2019.
The assessment of these prospects and leads is intended to occur throughout the 2020 calendar year with the intention that, subject to the findings of this work, joint venture approvals and securing a drilling rig, an exploration drilling campaign could commence in the 2021 calendar year. The drilling of these wells in 2021 will also be dependent on improving market conditions.
Planned seismic acquisition programs in the 2020 calendar year are expected to be deferred until market conditions improve and vessel logistics are not constrained by health issues.
