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New exploration tenders bring more gas to market

Home>News>New exploration tenders bring more gas to market

The Minister for Regional Development and Manufacturing, the Honourable Glenn Butcher has announced four companies have been awarded new exploration tenders to explore areas close to their existing infrastructure to get more gas to market quickly. Minister Butcher said gas from some of the areas was guaranteed to Australian companies to maintain jobs.

“Queensland’s gas and manufacturing industries support more than 200,000 jobs now. Supporting exploration maintains a pipeline of future resources projects and keeps gas flowing to our manufacturers. Any gas from more than 450 km² of this land is guaranteed for the Australian market. That’s gas for feedstock and energy for our manufacturers and their workers,” he said.

The four companies that have won tenders are:

  • Comet Ridge who will explore two areas totalling 435 km² for domestic market gas. The areas are to the east and north-east of Comet Ridges’ Mahalo North Project
  • Senex Energy who will explore 18 km² for domestic market gas near their existing Project Atlas near Wandoan, as well as 486 km² south east of Theodore
  • State Gas who will explore 1414 km² located south-west of Rolleston near their existing Reid’s Dome gas project
  • Denison Gas who will explore 668 km² located north of Injune, near their existing Denison South project.

The six new tenders awarded today (2x Comet Ridge, 2x Senex Energy, 1x State Gas and 1x Denison Gas) are part of the Queensland Government’s Tender Package PLR2020-1 (which was opened 14 May, 2020). This tender package, offered as part of the 2020 Queensland Exploration Program, included 12 new areas for petroleum and gas exploration across the Bowen and Surat Basins, covering a total area of 6,746 km².

What does this mean for landholders?

If you’re a landholder in the Surat, Galilee or Bowen Basins and wish to know more about what to expect with gas field developments, the GasFields Commission (the Commission) strongly encourages you to download a copy of our flagship publication, The Gas Guide, to obtain all the information you need to negotiate a fair and reasonable outcome should a resource company request to operate on your land.

Gas Guide 2.0 catalogues pertinent information that landholders need to know about the various stages of petroleum and gas development in Queensland – beginning with the advertisement and awarding of new exploration tenders (see Chapter 3 – Exploration Phase).

If you have any questions regarding the exploration process, Queensland’s onshore gas industry, please contact us directly via: