U.S. shale leaders’ Tamboran Resources Ltd. joint venture report its Shenandoah South 1H well in northern Australia’s Beetaloo Basin found some 300 ft (90 m) of Mid Velkerri B shale “with strong gas shows.”

Tamboran Managing Director and CEO Joel Riddle said initial data supports “our view that the deeper areas in the Beetaloo Basin contain some of the thickest and highest-quality B shale intersected to date in the Beetaloo.”

The hole, which was drilled to 10,800 ft (3,300 m), found what “represents the thickest section of Mid Velkerri B shale seen in the Beetaloo sub-basin depo-center to date,” Tamboran reported Aug. 30.

Tamboran
Log data from the Shenandoah South 1H well with comparison to offset wells within the Beetaloo Basin. (Source: Tamboran Resources)

Porosity and gas saturation are “consistent with the Marcellus shale,” it added.

Initial indications from the Shenandoah and offset wells—Amungee 2H and Beetaloo W1—are that the B-shale reservoir is continuous under 93 miles (150 km).

“This includes a target development area of approximately 1 million acres where the shale depth exceeds [8,900 feet],” Tamboran reported.

U.S. shale explorers behind the Tamboran-led shale-gas project are Dick Stoneburner, a co-founder of Haynesville early developer Petrohawk Energy Corp. that made the Eagle Ford discovery in the fall of 2008, and Bryan Sheffield, founder of Permian-focused Parsley Energy Inc., which was sold in 2021 to Pioneer Natural Resources Co. for $7.6 billion.

Drilling for Tamboran is Oklahoma-based Helmerich & Payne Inc., which brought a U.S.-shale-level super-spec FlexRig 3 to the play for Tamboran. The rig reached total depth in 21.5 days, averaging 500 ft (153 m) a day.

Time-Depth chart of Shenandoah South 1H compared to Beetaloo offset wells
Time-Depth chart of Shenandoah South 1H compared to Beetaloo offset wells. (Source: Tamboran Resources)

“This is a new record for wells drilled in the Beetaloo sub-basin,” Tamboran reported.

Tamboran (B2) Pty Ltd., which is operator with 77.5% interest, plans to now drill a 3,300-ft (1,000-m) lateral and complete half of the section with 10 stages this fall. Falcon Oil and Gas Australia Ltd. owns 22.5%.

Tamboran (B2) is a 50:50 joint venture of Tamboran and Daly Waters Energy LP, which is 100% owned by Austin, Texas-based Sheffield Holdings LP.

Houston-based Stoneburner is chairman of Tamboran Resources.

Tamboran is Australia’s largest acreage-holder and operator with some 1.9 million net prospective acres in the Beetaloo sub-basin of the Greater McArthur Basin in Australia’s Northern Territory.

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