ABC: Fracking in south west Queensland could help address gas shortfall

A central Australian exploration company says its exploration program in the Southern Georgina Basin is assessing the potential to frack for shale gas.

Central Petroleum has spudded the first of three wells in Queensland's south west, and is awaiting approval to explore at a fourth site on the Northern Territory side of the border.

Managing director Richard Cottee says the drilling will occur up to three kilometres below the surface.

"It will just be a straight horizontal drilling and we'll be coring and taking out the cores, putting them into a barrel to see how much gas escapes over time in a laboratory to work out gas oil," he said.

"In these wells we'll be testing, subject to receiving all the requested approvals, whether those shales are able to be fracked, in a scientific sense. MORE