PETALING JAYA: Hibiscus Petroleum Bhd’s associate company, 3D Oil Ltd (TDO) has secured a VIC/P79 exploration permit for offshore Otway Basin in Australia from National Offshore Petroleum Titles Administrator.

       Hibiscus’ unit Oceania Hibiscus Sdn Bhd holds an 11.7% equity in TDO.

       In a filing with Bursa Malaysia, Hibiscus said the 2,576 square km permit is located next to the largest gas fields in the offshore Otway Basin, Thylacine and Geographe which contains the highly prospective Vanguard Prospect.

       Hibiscus said the work programme for VIC/P79 was designed to exploit an existing opportunity in the permit through one exploration well at Vanguard Prospect in permit year three, after the reprocessing, merging and interpretation of 630 square km of existing 3D seismic data.

       “Reprocessed data will also support geological and geophysical studies of additional leads already identified.

       “The Secondary Term will focus on adding additional value by exploring the large, underexplored region to the west,” it noted.