Inpex Says Won New Exploration Block Offshore Australia

Inpex Corp. bagged an exploration permit for a Western Australian block sitting near discovered fields and spanning about 920 square kilometers (355.2 square miles), the Japanese company announced recently.

Release Area AC22-1, now named AC/P71, was awarded to its subsidiary INPEX Browse E&P Pty. Ltd. under Australia’s 2022 Offshore Petroleum Exploration Acreage Release, Inpex said in a statement. Inpex, an exploration and production firm, holds a 100 percent operating stake.

Located off the northern coast of Western Australia in water depths of around 100–300 meters (328.1–984.3 feet), the block is adjacent to the discovered AC/RL7 Retention Lease, which is majority-owned by Inpex. “The Block [AC/P71] is therefore considered to be in a promising exploration area”, it said in the statement on its website.

Last year Inpex acquired a 74 percent interest in the AC/RL7 Retention Lease from PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. Ltd. (PTTEP), in an agreement that also saw TotalEnergies SE buy the remaining 26 percent. The transaction was completed December 22, 2023, as announced by Thailand’s state-owned PTTEP.

AC/RL7, also called the Cash-Maple Project, contains an estimated 3.5 trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of resources, primarily natural gas and condensate, according to information on PTTEP’s website.

The newly awarded block, AC/P71, also sits in the “general vicinity” of the already-producing Ichthys gas and condensate field, which supplies feed gas to the Ichthys LNG Project. “Therefore, success in this exploration permit will contribute to enhancing the project’s resilience”, Inpex added.

The Australian exploration leases are part of Inpex’s 2030 vision, which sees the company increasing fossil fuel investment particularly in gas while reducing the intensity of emissions from oil and gas assets. Inpex aims to raise the share of gas investment to about 70 percent by the end of the decade, including by increasing its midstream and downstream LNG volumes.

In Australia, Inpex is focused on accelerating “participation in exploration activities in the vicinity of the Ichthys Field as well as development of discovered but undeveloped assets to further ensure a sustained production volume in the long term, and then aim to further increase production volume with a view to expand the Ichthys onshore production plant in around 2030”, it said in its Long-Term Strategy and Medium-Term Management Plan released February 9, 2022.

The Ichthys LNG facility started production 2018. Besides 8.9 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) of LNG, the project also produces up to 1.65 MMtpa of liquefied petroleum gas and 100,000 barrels per day of condensate. The Ichthys field, located about 220 kilometers (136.7 miles) offshore Western Australia, contains over 12 trillion cubic feet of gas and 500 million barrels of condensate, according to information on Inpex’s website.

Inpex operates the Ichthys LNG project with a stake of about 66.25 percent. TotalEnergies holds 26 percent. A group of Japanese gas buyers own 5.13 percent. Taiwan’s state-owned CPC Corp. has the remaining stake of about 2.63 percent.

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