There is currently no operational coal seam gas production in the Cooper subregion. The Cooper subregion is covered by 105,550 km2 of exploration, retention, and production leases and applications (Figure 7) held by 124 companies. This amounts to 81% of the subregion. These tenements are focused on conventional oil and gas resources, as well as shale gas, basin-centred gas, tight gas, deep coal seam gas and combinations of these resource types. Oil and gas production facilities are located at Moomba in SA, and Ballera, Jackson and Eromanga in Queensland. They process hydrocarbons from over 300 fields which are transferred into pipelines servicing the east coast gas market as well as oil refining facilities in SA. Figure 7 shows the exploration, retention and production licences and applications for the Cooper subregion, as well as the oil and gas fields and pipelines.
The Southern Cooper Basin Gas Project encompasses petroleum exploration licence (PEL) 94, PEL 95, and PEL 96 on the southern flanks of the Cooper Basin (Figure 8). Strike Energy Limited and Beach Energy Limited, in conjunction with joint venture partners, have been conducting exploration and appraisal to evaluate the gas resource in deep coal seams in the Weena Trough and Milpera Trough and Tinga Tingana Ridge of the Cooper Basin since 2010, about 100 km south of Moomba in SA (Strike Energy Limited, 2014). More details of the Southern Cooper Basin Gas Project are in Section 1.2.3.2 and Section 1.2.4
Figure 7 Coal and petroleum tenements in the Cooper subregion
Data: Queensland Department of Natural Resources and Mines (Dataset 1, Dataset 2); SA Department of State Development (Dataset 3, Dataset 4)
