High Peak Royalties Ltd (ASX:HPR) is encouraged by the strong progress made across its portfolio of royalty interests in Queensland, Northern Territory and South Australia.
At Peat Gas Field in Queensland, strong commodity prices continue to flow to future royalty payments, and the company is pleased with the increased activity and receipts from this royalty asset operated by Origin Energy.
In the Northern Territory, HPR will continue to monitor the progress of farmout partners and permit activity at Surprise Oil Field, as they apply to HPR’s royalty interests in any farmout arrangement and progress on those permit areas operated by Central Petroleum.
The company is also in the process of collating all technical data with respect to the prior works on its geothermal assets, in order to evaluate their prospective value relative to the recent market interest.
Royalty receipts from Origin
HPR has received payment from Origin in the sum of $102,823 for the period October 2021 to December 2021.
The company believes this is partially due to increased volumes received from the deep well being drilled at Peat Gas field in PL101 in Queensland (where HPR has a 2.13% royalty).
Notably, the payment received for the December 2021 quarter is a significant increase from previous quarters.
HPR was anticipating a payment from a lag in royalty payments relative to the sale of gas by Origin.
Updates from Surprise
At Surprise Oil Field in the Northern Territory, a Production Licence (PL 6) was excised from the EP115 permit operated by Central Petroleum Limited through its subsidiary Frontier Oil (NYSE:FTO) and Gas Pty Ltd. (HPR 1% royalty).
Central Petroleum is targeting a $90 million exploration program for EP115 (subject to funding/farm-out) and is also seeking to partner on the Production Licence.
HPR will continue to monitor the progress of farmout partners and permit activity at Surprise Oil Field, as they apply to HPR’s royalty interests in any farmout arrangement and progress on those permit areas.
Geothermal Permits
Following recent activity and development in the geothermal sector, the board is conducting a review of its geothermal assets, namely the exploration permits GEL 571, 572 573 and 574.
HPR holds five geothermal energy licences covering 21,681 square kilometres of highly prospective geothermal tenure in South Australia along the Torrens Hinge Zone, where insulating sedimentary rocks of the Adelaide Geosyncline overlap the radiogenic basement rocks of the eastern margin of Gawler Craton.
The company is in the process of collating all technical data with respect to the prior works on these assets, in order to evaluate their prospective value, relative to recent market interest in geothermal assets.
HPR also holds one geothermal tenement area under the application in the Northern Territory. While HPR considers its geothermal interests to have attractive potential, it has decided to defer major expenditures on these interests until incentives are in place to allow geothermal energy to progress in Australia.