Northern Carnarvon Basin

There are 8 release areas in the Northern Carnarvon Basin, offshore Western Australia.

Release area locations:

• Beagle Sub-basin
• Dampier Sub-basin
• Barrow Sub-basin
• Exmouth Plateau

Regional geology

• View petroleum geology information for the Northern Carnarvon Basin from Geoscience Australia
• For wells and survey information search the interactive NOPIMS database

Maps and shapefiles

Maps show the release areas in bathymetric detail. They also include other permit locations, known petroleum accumulations and wells. Shapefiles show the areas in vector format for geographic information system (GIS) software.

See all release area maps in this basin [1.88MB PDF]

View high resolution release area maps:

• Beagle Sub-basin release area map [1.74MB PNG]
• Dampier Sub-basin release area map [1.58MB PNG]
• Barrow Sub-basin release area map [1.32MB PNG]
• Exmouth Plateau release area map [2.06MB PNG]

Download shapefiles of all acreage release areas [87KB ZIP]

Block diagrams

Block diagrams show the coordinates of release area boundaries.

See all block diagrams in this basin [655KB PDF]

View block diagrams:

• Beagle Sub-basin block diagram [291KB JPEG]
• Dampier and Barrow Sub-basin block diagram [301KB JPEG]
• Exmouth Plateau block diagram [364KB JPEG]

Block listings

Block listings provide graticular block numbers and 1:1,000,000 map sheet references that identify each release area.

See all block listings in this basin [124KB PDF] [34KB DOCX]

Marine parks

The following areas overlap with marine parks and international jurisdictions.

• The Montebello Multiple Use Zone (IUCN VI) overlaps with release areas W21-7 and W21-8.

Defence restricted areas

The Department of Defence provided comments as part of public consultation.

• W21-9, W21-10 & W21-11 are within the North Western Australia Exercise Area (NWXA).
• W21-9 is within Restricted Airspace R852.
• W21-11 is within Restricted Airspace R853.
• Defence activities and aircraft movement may impact on-water activities in W21-9 and W21-11. Offshore infrastructure may impact the safety of air navigation due to the risk of collision with low-flying aircraft below 500 feet.

How to bid

Work-program bidding closes on Thursday 3 March 2022.

Find out how to file your application.

Foreign investors need to submit evidence of a Foreign Investment Review Board decision with the application.

About these files

If you experience any difficulty accessing this information, please email petrolum.exploration@industry.gov.au.