Central Petroleum is a ASX listed junior exploration and production company operating what is regarded as the biggest package of prospective acreage in Australia at over 270,000 km2.
The Company’s main goal is to maximise shareholder returns by enhanced share value and potentially by dividend payments. It aims to operate 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 any oil discoveries but 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, helium production and sales are regarded as an intrinsic part of this overall strategy. Apart from conventional gas reservoir potential, the Company has had independent estimates of over 10,000 trillion cubic feet in UCG “syngas” prospective recoverable resources and as well has produced inhouse estimates coupled with external independent reports of up to c.200 trillion cubic feet of gas in CSG and other unconventional reservoirs. Prospective recoverable resources of oil are in the billion barrel class.
The acreage includes the majority of the Pedirka Basin in the Northern Territory and in 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 very large targets in prospective areas of strategically well placed parts of central Australia and later to examine potential for the monetization of gas resources via Gas to Liquids (GTL) Fischer Tropsch and LNG technology in the production of zero sulphur diesel, naphtha and jet fuel.
