The project, based around ATPs 767, 795, 889, will involve the drilling of up to 1000 wells over 30 years, staring in the east and moving westward towards the South Australian border.
The project will be developed with relatively cheap vertical wells, close to the established Spring Gully CSG field.
The project covers around 993sq.km some 30km northeast of Roma and just 10km from the Wallumbilla gas hub at its closest point.
Targeted throughput is 35 terajoules per day.
The company is assessing a standalone central gas processing facility, owned by the company, to compress the gas for injection into one of the high pressure gas pipelines that run from Wallumbilla to Gladstone through the permit.
Under this scenario the produced water would be treated and used for irrigation.
Or it may supply the gas and water to a third party, a cheaper option that will not require compression or water processing facilities.
Senex says it is open to sharing third party facilities or co-located gas fields.
It may be able to strike a deal with neighbours such as Santos’ Gladstone LNG or Origin Energy’s Australia Pacific LNG under which it will supply the production to them in low-pressure pipelines and let them deal with the compression and produced water.
Senex says it is agnostic regarding the final destination of the gas as either LNG for export or domestic gas for local use.
The blocks include the three that Senex increased its equity to 100% in by handing its interests in PL 171 and ATP 574P to BG, CNOOC and Tokyo Gas last September.
At the time Senex tripled its 2P gas reserves from 157 petajoules to 488PJ by taking BG’s “non-core” assets off its hands.
Senex aims to spend $40 million in the Western Surat project over the next few years, with the target of establishing a pilot project by 2016, and building up a major gas project.
Senex's gas business also includes the nearby Don Juan CSG project, the Hornet tight gas project in South Australia, and unconventional potential in the Cooper Basin that the company has barely started examining.
