ConocoPhillips Enters Search for Shale Gas in Australia

ConocoPhillips has signed a non-binding deal with New Standard Energy to spend up to $US110 million ($103m) on shale gas exploration in Western Australia.

ConocoPhillips will take up to a 75 per cent stake in New Standard's Goldwyer project which stretches over 45,000 square kilometres of the onshore Canning Basin on the northern edge of the Great Sandy Desert.

The energy major's funding commitment would range over four phases of exploration work that would include the drilling, coring and evaluation of multiple wells to earn its stake in the project.  The two parties hope to reach a binding agreement by the end of September, allowing exploration to start in 2012.

According to a recent report from the US Energy Information Administration estimated the ''risked'' potential of the Canning Basin was 229 trillion cubic feet of gas.

The deal follow the announcement by Beach Energy that it had encountered significant gas flows from the nation's first shale gas well drilled in South Australia.

Related Reading: Beach Delivers Australia's First Shale Gas Well