Bass Oil soars as company unveils new 100% owned oil resource over 840MMbbl

Bass Oil (ASX:BAS) has published an oil and gas reserves estimate attached to its operations in the South Australian onshore Cooper Basin. 

Bass Oil, in a reserves estimate certified by a private company called Fluid Energy Consultants (FEC), has today published upper-range reserves of: 

• 845 million barrels of oil, and (845MMbbl) 

• 21 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (TCF)

That upper-range estimate is attached to the PEL182 licence, the instrument through which Bass is permitted to carry out works in the Cooper. 

While upper-range estimates are simply that, potential volumes of oil and gas which could be recovered, all things going well (a majority of oil and gas wells have a chance of success under 20%), market interest in Bass Oil’s news today is clear. 

Deep coals ahoy 

Part of that reserve is dependent on gassy coal bodies which start at 2.5km underground, which is notably deep for an onshore development, but not unheard of. 

Santos Limited (ASX:STO), active next door, has recently started horizontal drilling and fracking to commercialise its own Beanbush deposit. 

According to FEC, the Moolion East prospect (a target area within PEL182) boasts an upper estimate gas reserve of 3.8TCF; Bass today describes also “an assessed prospective resource of 568 billion cubic feet plus associated liquids.” 

With the reserves under its belt, Bass will now move on to assessing the tenement for the most ideal commercialisation strategy. The company is actively considering third party investors or farminees, as well as self-funded development of the project. 

Becoming a credible contributor: Management 

“At a time when the domestic gas market continues to face huge challenges meeting demand, this new potential gas resource represents a credible material contributor of gas to the domestic market,” Bass Oil MD Tino Guglielmo said. 

“Whilst we will progress this opportunity with vigour, we are also conscious of maximising the benefit to our shareholders.”

“A new gas resource of this kind is able to be commercialised efficiently due to the mature infrastructure of the Cooper Basin.” 

Bass Oil's share price was up 113% in early afternoon trading to $0.079