Shale Compendium: Australia and New Zealand

Australia

• First commercial shale gas well in Australia launched by Santos Ltd. In October 2012 (Nasdaq)

• Chevron entered into joint venture with Beach Energy in February 2013 acquiring a share in Australia’s shale gas. The deal valued at $349 million. (Forbes; Bloomberg)

• ConocoPhillips invested 109.5M into Canning basin shale to fund a four-phase exploration program. (Oil & Gas Journal)

• Queensland Energy got approval from Queensland state government to develop commercial oil shale operations (Oil & Gas Journal)

• Chevron, Statoil, Total and PetroChina hold interests in Australian shale assets (The Australian)

New Zealand

• Tag Oil received government approval to drill two shale wells in New Zealand (Upstream)

• Taranaki Regional Council published a Hydrogeologic Risk Assessment of Hydraulic Fracturing for Gas Recovery in the Taranaki Region report, updated May 2012.

• New Zealand awarded 10 petroleum exploration permits covering several shale formations in 2012 (Oil and Gas Journal)

• TAG Oil spudded an exploratory well in the black shale and source rock formations in the East Coast basin in New Zealand. (Oil & Gas Journal Apr. 2013)

Written by Anna Leonenko, Research Fellow

Penn State Law, Agricultural Law Center

May 2013