This coming Australian summer will be a hot one, especially in the state of South Australia where UK supermajor BP and joint venture partner Statoil will begin a major offshore exploration drilling campaign.
The plan is to start off by drilling two ultra-deepwater exploration wells in the Ceduna sub-basin of the Great Australian Bight.
BP and Statoil still have some regulatory hoops to jump through, and there will be marine environmentalists and anti-fossil fuel activists to contend with, but the aim is to spud the first well before Christmas.
The
