Proactiveinvestors Australia

Projects:  VIC/P57

Gippsland Basin Activities

3D Oil Limited was granted the VIC/P57 Exploration Permit, located in the north-west offshore Gippsland Basin, in April 2004 and has held it at 100% equity since that time. The initial six-year permit term expired in July 2011 and, following the required relinquishment of some of the original acreage, the permit has been renewed for another five years, commencing August 2011. The renewed permit area is as shown in the figure below.

Gippsland Basin Overview

Historically the Gippsland Basin has been the most prolific petroleum liquids province in Australia. It accounts for approximately 57 percent of Australia’s produced petroleum liquids. To date, almost 29000 PJ (4.8 billion barrels) of petroleum liquids and 17000 PJ of gas have been discovered from the more than 150 exploration wells drilled in the offshore Gippsland Basin, making it significant by world standards and achieving a technical success rate better than 40 percent.

VIC/P57 Overview

Since its renewal in August 2011, VIC/P57 is approximately 483 square kilometres in size, covering a geologically diverse area of the Northern Terrace and the Central Deep areas of the offshore Gippsland Basin. It also contains the West Seahorse oil field, located a few kilometres west of the producing Seahorse Field. A drill stem test in main oil zone of the 1981 discovery well, West Seahorse-1, flowed 1800 bopd through a half-inch choke.

VIC/P57 is flanked to the south by several oil and gas fields including the giant Barracouta and Snapper gas fields. These are located on a large regional anticline, which is interpreted to shield the VIC/P57 region from significant gas charge. Consequently it is thought unlikely that any oil accumulations in VIC/P57 will have been displaced by gas. Other oil and gas fields on the southern flank of the permit include Golden Beach, Mulloway/Whiptail, Seahorse, Wirrah, Whiting, Emperor and Sweetlips. In recent years exploration wells along trend of prospects and leads in VIC/P57 have intersected hydrocarbons, including West Whiptail-1, Longtom-2, Grayling-1A, West Moonfish-1, North Wirrah-1 and South East Remora-1. Within VIC/P57, the 2008 Wardie-1 exploration well also encountered oil shows. All of these targets were located from mapping of Esso’s Northern Margin 3D seismic survey.

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Projects:  T/41P

Bass Basin Activities

3D Oil Limited was granted the T/41P Exploration Permit, located in the eastern Bass Basin, in June 2005 and has held it at 100% equity since that time. In early 2010 the six-year permit term was extended by 12 months, and is due to expire in June 2012.

Bass Basin Overview

The Bass Basin is a relatively under-explored basin on Australia’s southeastern margin, underlying the shallow seabed between Tasmania and the Victorian mainland. It has long been recognized to contain excellent quality source rocks and has had a high strike rate for intersecting hydrocarbons. Commercial success, however, has proven to be more difficult. This changed in 2006 with the opening of the Bass Gas project centred on the Yolla oil and gas discovery, approximately 40 km to the west of T/41P, with Proved and Probable Reserves of 330 petajoules of gas and 28 MMbbl of condensate and oil.

Since drilling commenced in the Bass Basin in 1965 fewer than 40 exploration wells have been drilled. Apart from the Yolla Field, discoveries in the Bass Basin include the Pelican gas/condensate field, the Cormorant oil discovery and the gas/condensate discoveries at White Ibis and Trefoil.

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Campbell Horsfall
(Non-Executive Chairman)

Campbell Horsfall is a solicitor with extensive experience in the petroleum industry and has held positions as Company Solicitor for BP Australia Ltd, BHP Petroleum, Japan Australia LNG (MIMI) Pty Ltd and has until recently been General Counsel of Vicpower. Campbell holds Degrees in Law and Commerce from the University of Melbourne and a Diploma from the Securities Institute and practices as a lawyer in Melbourne.

He has been a director of two public companies and has been a non-executive director of Orchard Petroleum Limited since May 2002. Orchard Petroleum Limited is listed on the ASX and focuses exclusively on oil and gas exploration and development in California’s prolific hydrocarbon regions of the Sacramento and San Joaquin basins.


Noel Newell
(Managing Director)

Noel Newell has over 25 years experience in the oil and gas industry with 20 years of this time with BHP Billiton and Petrofina. With these companies, he has been technically involved in exploration of areas around the globe, particularly South East Asia, and all major Australian offshore basins. Prior to leaving BHP Billiton in 2002 Noel was Principal Geoscientist working within the Southern Margin Group and primarily responsible for exploration within the Gippsland Basin. Noel has a number of technical publications and has co-authored Best Paper and runner up Best Paper at the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association conference and Best Paper at the Western Australian Basins Symposium.

Noel is the founder of 3D Oil. Immediately prior to starting 3D Oil Noel was a technical advisor to Nexus Energy Limited and directly involved in their move to explore in the offshore of the Gippsland Basin.


Melanie Leydin
(Non-Executive Director and Company Secretary)

Ms Leydin is a Chartered Accountant and principal in a chartered accounting firm specializing in audit and company secretarial services.

Ms Leydin has 14 years experience in the accounting profession and is a director and company secretary for a number of junior mining and exploration entities listed on the Australian Stock Exchange.


Keith Edwards
(Non-Executive Director)

Keith Edwards has recently started his own consulting business. Mr Edwards has over 28 years petroleum industry experience in company management, business development (both upstream and downstream) and project financing in addition to his foundation technical areas of petroleum engineering, oil and gas field development, engineering, operations, gas marketing, and project evaluation. He has worked with both oil majors (BHP Billiton and Shell International) and also with Nexus Energy which was a small cap when he joined in 2004 but had expanded into the mid cap space when he departed in 2011.


Philippa Kelly
(Non-Executive Director)

Ms Kelly has over 25 years experience in the corporate sector, with a background in law and investment banking. She has held a number of senior executive roles within the property and funds management industry over the past 10 years. Philippa is a director of the Australian Drug Foundation and a member of the Council of Deakin University.

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