Karoon Gas Australia has won the bid for a prospective 171km2 offshore block in the Santos Basin in the Brazilian state of Santa Catarina, with a water depth of approximately 400m.
Karoon was awarded Block S-M-1537 yesterday by the ANP (National Agency of Petroleum), in Brazil. The Block is located in an existing oil and gas producing province in close proximity to several oil and gas producing fields, including Bauna and Piracaba to the north. Other nearby discoveries include the Caravela and Coral oil fields to the west. Karoon believes the Block provides exciting low risk exploration, which has the potential for hundreds of millions of barrels of oil.
The Block contains one main prospect with the reservoir comprising Oligocene turbidite sands with very high porosity and permeability as seen in the producing Bauna and Piracaba fields. Seismic analysis shows an excellent Amplitude versus Offset anomaly supportive of the presence of trapped oil. The mapped area of the prospect covers a large portion of the Block and is over 100 square km.
Karoon leveraged off its expertise and knowledge of the southern Santos Basin through the evaluation of the Kangaroo and Echidna discoveries and nearby fields to identify this Block as the best high value potential in the southern Santos Basin.
With future success, there are many synergies to be had with a potential joint development at the Kangaroo and Echidna discoveries.
Karoon will complete the acquisition of the Block during December 2017 upon execution of a concession agreement in Brazil, at which time Karoon will pay a total of $A8 million in a non-refundable bid bonus and will provide a refundable Work Program guarantee bond to ANP of $A2.5 million. The work program Karoon will undertake consists of seismic acquisition and geological studies.