CENTRAL PETROLEUM LIMITED - ASX: CTP

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Description

Central Petroleum Limited is an ASX listed junior exploration and production company operating the largest holding of prospective onshore acreage in Australia totalling over 270,000 km2, c.70 million acres. This acreage includes permits already awarded and acreage under application with 250,000 km2 under the Petroleum Acts and 20,000 km2 under the Mining Acts mainly in the Northern Territory with smaller holdings in Western Australia, South Australia and Queensland.

The acreage is entirely onshore and because of this, drilling costs are a fraction of those generally encountered offshore. The Company operates this acreage in one of the most fiscally and politically stable countries in the world, Australia.

The Company's main goal is to maximise shareholder returns by enhanced share value and ultimately by dividend payments. It aims to do this by operating a central Australian petroleum hub connected to appropriate infrastructure to allow the export to domestic and overseas markets of both primary energy resources and value added petroleum and helium products.

The Company plans to potentially capitalise on early cash flow from an oil discovery and is seeking to build gas resources to a threshold point where value-adding processes such as LNG and or GTL, for example, can be brought into play. With helium prices approaching $145 USD/1,000 scfg in the USA (The bulk price set by the BLM has been revised. As a result, Federal Crude Helium will be sold at $75.00 per thousand cubic feet in FY2011, compared to $64.75 in 2010, signalling a 15.8% price increase. This price covers helium debt repayment and interest and includes administrative and storage costs.) Helium production and sales are regarded as an intrinsic part of this overall strategy. Apart from conventional gas potential, the Company has had independent estimates of over 10,000 trillion cubic feet in UCG "syngas" prospective recoverable resources. Prospective recoverable resources of oil could be in excess of a billion barrels and there are large areas of coal in the Permian Pedirka basin.

The acreage includes the majority of the Pedirka Basin within the Northern Territory and South Australia, the majority of the Amadeus Basin in the Northern Territory, all of the known Lander Trough in the Northern Territory and approximately 25,000 km2 of the Southern Georgina Basin.

The Company was formed by Mr John Heugh and Mr Richard Faull in 1998 in a countercyclical strategy aimed at securing large acreage tracts with large prospective target structures in central Australia. Central Australia contains one commercial oil field and one commercial gas field with another large gas discovery remaining undeveloped. It is very probable that more commercial accumulations will be discovered, hence there is potential for the monetization of possible oil resources through trucking, rail or pipeline infrastructure. There is also potential for monetisation of possible large gas resources via Gas to Liquids (GTL) Fischer Tropsch (FT) processing to produce zero sulphur diesel, naphtha, jet fuel and LNG technology.

Very large coal accumulations present in the Pedirka Basin are also being explored with a view to examining monetisation via very large scale beneficiation and export, coal to liquids (CTL), co-generation of power and underground coal gasification (UCG). Any gas produced by UCG or coal gasification could be applied conceptually to value adding processes such as FT liquid production.

Key Points

* Robust exploration programme completed in 2009/10 with planning for another round of exploration in 2011.
* Listed on the ASX March 2nd 2006.
* Genesis of the Company 1998 when oil traded at $12/bbl.
* Biggest petroleum acreage portfolio onshore Australia comprising 60 million acres mostly 100% operated.
* Whole of basin exploration opportunities.
* Mean prospective recoverable resources 1 billion bbls and 26 TCFG in the Amadeus in unconventional reservoirs (independently evaluated)
* "Yet to find" Amadeus resources unrisked up to 35 TCFG or 6 billion barrels (NTGS 2005).
* 300 Billion tonne plus tonne coal Exploration Target Pedirka Basin.
* 10 Billion bbl and 100 TCFG UOIIP and UGIIP potential.
* Helium potential of up to 200 BCFG Helium in UGIIP Mt Kitty Prospect alone.
* Over 80 prospects and leads.
* Long range GTL plans for gas, 10,000-140,000 bbl/day pre-feasibility studies completed.
* Recently completed (Jan 2004) infrastructure direct link to Port Darwin, and existing pipeline to Darwin-possible entry to LNG potential.
* Experienced management and Board.
* Good risk spread in different basins, different play types and different commodity marketing targets i.e. gas, oil, condensate, diesel, naphtha, jet fuel, coal and Helium.
* Dramatically underexplored acreage position given an average discovery success rate of over 4 MMboe per exploration well in the Amadeus and with an average well density of c. 1 well per 5,000 square kilometres (1.2 million acres).
* Most acreage Central has a 100% net interest

Mine For

coal bed methane, geothermal energy, oil, gas, helium

Location of operation(s)

Northern Territory, South Australia, Queensland, Western Australia

Australian Basins

Wiso, Georgina, Pedirka, Amadeus

Address

Suite 3, Level 4, Southshore Centre, 85 The Esplanade
SOUTH PERTH, WA, AUSTRALIA

Phone

08 9474 1444

Email

Website

http://www.centralpetroleum.com.au

Last Updated

15/04/2011