Beetaloo Energy picked up its pace markedly in May after its development activities were delayed three months by heavy wet-season rains. To get the ball rolling, a $35 million jumbo placement was put away at 16 cents a share before the company fired the starter’s gun to open up its massive horizontal Carpentaria-5H well.
Stimulation of the hole roared to life in mid-June. Oilfield heavyweight Halliburton rolled in with a monster 42,000 horsepower spread to punch more than 60 fracture stages into a 3.3-kilometre section of the Velkerri B Shale, making it the biggest fracture attempted in the Beetaloo sub-basin.
By early July, the program was hailed a resounding success, with Halliburton driving 67 slickwater fracks into the rock at breakneck pace.
Water and sand were pumped underground at more than 100 barrels a minute, cracking open up to five stages a day. In total, a staggering 11,000 tonnes of sand was rammed into the shale – about 337,000 pounds per stage – to keep the fractures wedged wide open.
Beetaloo Energy says the well has now been cleaned out and allowed to soak for a month before the all-important flow testing gets underway. The tests are due to start any day now.
They will run for 30 days with results expected by late September. A strong performance from C-5H would go a long way towards proving up the basin’s commercial potential, setting the scene for pilot production.
Beetaloo Energy has even more reason to be upbeat right now, after neighbour Tamboran Resources revealed a standout result from its Shenandoah South 2H sidetrack well.
Tamboran’s 1671m horizontal well was drilled into the same Velkerri B shale and pumped out an impressive initial rate of 6.8 million cubic feet of gas a day over its first 60 days, easing only slightly to 6.4MMcf/d. In a dramatic twist, production ticked up to 6.5MMcf/d between days 60 and 90 – without a single downhole tweak and even as wellhead pressure eased.
In late June, Beetaloo Energy also secured another vital piece of the puzzle when the area’s traditional owners, the Mambaliya Rrumburriya Wuyaliya Aboriginal Land Trust, formally consented to the sale of appraisal gas at an on-country meeting convened by the Northern Land Council.
If the flow test stacks up, this crucial consent will then unlock the territory government’s vital beneficial use of gas approval – the green light needed for a final investment decision. That decision in turn will trigger $30 million in Macquarie Bank infrastructure funding to build the pilot plant, setting Beetaloo on course for first shale gas production in the second quarter of 2026.
The company has locked in a weighty $65 million funding package, with $30 million earmarked for a research and development facility to supercharge its next growth phase. The cash injection will bankroll exploration, appraisal and development drilling – including the high-impact Carpentaria-5H well, while also covering the build-out of vital infield infrastructure to keep the project’s momentum rolling.
Of course, nothing is certain in the notoriously fickle oil and gas game. But should C-5H prove up commercial rates, it could spark a rush of interest from the majors – particularly United States shale veterans eyeing a basin some believe could host as much as 500 trillion cubic feet of gas.
For punters, the coming months promise to be pivotal. If the flow rates meet expectations, the company could lock in its place as the Northern Territory’s first onshore shale gas producer – putting it firmly in the national energy spotlight.
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