France

Gippsland Offshore and Sydney based Gas2Grid Limited (GGX) have submitted a bid for exploration acreage in the Aquitaine Basin, France and are in the final stages of formal award.

The opportunity arose when Exxon retreated from oil and gas exploration in the country. There has been no active exploration in the basin since the mid-1980’s even though there has been 13TCF of gas and 450mmbbls of oil discovered to date. Markets and infrastructure are well developed, so the commercialization of even small discoveries is unlikely to be problematic.

Gippsland Offshore wishes to explore the areas between known producing fields that from geological review have good prospectivity. Coupled with this, the eastern flank of the basin is very poorly explored and offers considerable “upside” opportunity. The BHP Billiton FALCON® technology will play a highly important role in exploration of the block as acquiring new seismic data will be difficult due to restricted ground access.

Gippsland Offshore has been offered approximately 1,300km² of exploration acreage, final contracts with the French Government are expected to be executed by mid 2008.

Updated 25 March 2008