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All three areas are at the deepwater edge of Australia's vast maritime zone - an area almost twice the size of the continent.

Geoscience Australia is using an advanced aeromagnetic survey also to examine basins to the west and north of Tasmania, recently collecting data over a flying distance of 140,000km. The results are being analysed.

With extra funding for frontier exploration, Geoscience Australia has employed an array of technology in the search for resources and has turned up enticing new evidence. It has found potential source rocks in the Bight, which has never produced oil or gas.

The new evidence has emerged at a time of dwindling oil production in Australia, with reserves equal to 10 years of production.

Despite its gas exports, Australia is a net petroleum importer, but with gas production set to quadruple over the next two decades this should turn into a significant surplus.

On Thursday, Barack Obama opened massive new areas to offshore oil and gas exploration as part of a strategy to reduce US dependence on imported oil. The new areas include a vast area off the US east coast and previously protected parts of the Gulf of Mexico and Alaskan waters.

Resources Minister Martin Ferguson will this month unveil Goescience Australia's analysis of seismic and other geological data obtained from the Wallaby Plateau, a new area granted to Australia by the UN two years ago.

Mr Ferguson will outline the results of seismic, magnetic, gravity and bathymetric surveys, and dredging of the seabed, completed in February last year.

The dredging has uncovered rocks that suggest the existence of "depocentres" - places where petroleum is often produced.

Before Geoscience Australia's work, virtually nothing was known about these three areas - not even the shape of the seabed.

Mr Ferguson is expected to announce next month the release of more exploration blocks in frontier areas, including the unexplored Mentelle Basin, off the coast of Perth.

Significant discoveries would have the potential to create new energy hubs, such as the vast North West Shelf operation in Western Australia, which is the single biggest resources project in the nation. Massive developments are already planned for Gladstone on the Queensland central coast to process coal-seam gas for sale as liquefied natural gas to offshore markets.

Geoscience Australia geologist Jennifer Totterdell told The Weekend Australian dredging the Bight had uncovered "amazing organic-rich rocks" - the type that can, under the right geological conditions, produce oil.

Geoscience Australia made the discovery in 2007 by launching a dredge from the RV Southern Surveyor to water depths of up to 2900m to haul rocks to the surface.

"The discovery of world-class potential source rocks has definitely improved perceptions of prospectivity in the basin," Ms Totterdell said.

By delivering these "source rocks on a platter", as one expert put it, Geoscience Australia's work sparked interest in an area previously abandoned.

Ms Totterdell said the Bight had been regarded as "too hard" by many oil companies, and the rough seas and location of the basin made exploration work in the area "challenging".

In 2003, Woodside Petroleum, the nation's biggest independent oil and gas company, drilled the Gnarlyknots well to a depth of 4000m in the seabed, at a cost of $55m, but it had to abandon the project due to 10m swells. But Ms Totterdell's team was undeterred. They believed the bitumen rocks that washed up on beaches along the coast gave strong indications there was petroleum offshore.

Under Australia's petroleum exploration regime, all information acquired by companies must be given to the federal government. Geoscience Australia re-analysed Woodside's data, and then began looking for rocks in an area about 200km west of where Woodside had drilled.

The rocks were dredged from a 5km-wide canyon that enabled geologists to uncover samples that lie thousands of metres below the seabed in the centre of the basin, about 200km to the east. It is in the centre where the exploration blocks have been offered.

The Bight's water depth ranges from 500m-4000m; the Wallaby Plateau ranges from 2000m to 4000m and Lord Howe Rise ranges from 1300m-2500m.

National oil production has declined from a peak of 35 billion barrels a year early last decade to about 20 billion at present.

But significant gas discoveries continue to be made. Since Woodside's discovery of the Pluto field off northern Western Australia in 2005 - which will go into production next year - Woodside, Chevron and Hess have all made major new finds on the North West Shelf.

Under the Howard government, then resources minister Ian Macfarlane secured more resources for Geoscience Australia work at the frontier. In 2003, Geoscience Australia got an additional $61m for frontier work, and a further $75m in 2006. Along with the additional money, Mr Macfarlane pushed through, against strong opposition from then treasurer Peter Costello, a 150 per cent tax write-off for exploration in frontier areas.

The tax incentive and Geoscience Australia's extra funding run out next year, but Mr Macfarlane, now the opposition resources spokesman, is committed to extending both.

A spokesman for Mr Ferguson said Geoscience Australia's funding was being reviewed as part of the budget and the tax incentive was under the Henry tax review.

Paul Cleary is an Australian journalist and former advisor to the Prime Minister of East Timor on oil and seabed negotiations. Petroleumworld does not necessarily share these views.

Editor's Note: This commentary was originally published by The Australian, April. 3, 2010. Petroleumworld reprint this article in the interest of our readers

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