Oil is one of two commodities on which resources giant BHP Billiton will focus its $900 million exploration spend in the financial year ending June 30, 2017, aimed at enhancing its "long-life, tier one" portfolio, the company's head of geoscience Laura Tyler said at an industry forum in Sydney Monday.
BHP Billiton's petroleum business is expected to produce 237 million barrels of oil equivalent, or about 647,540 boe/d, in the current financial year ending June 30, 2016. The company's liquids production in the first nine months of this year was 89.7 million boe, or 326,180 b/d.
"We are investing at a time when most in our sector continues to reduce discretionary spend," Tyler said.
BHP Billiton earlier this year boosted its expected petroleum exploration spending for the current financial year to $640 million from $600 million previously.
"We are also challenging existing paradigms with a scientific ... and disciplined approach to exploration," Tyler said. "We have reduced exploration operating costs by 70% since 2013, and this year we have increased the targets tested by 44%."
The company's petroleum exploration program is focused on three conventional deepwater regions: the Gulf of Mexico, the Caribbean and the Beagle sub-basin off Western Australia.
"Over the last four years we have developed a new approach to petroleum exploration that is much more focused," Tyler said. "We have commenced drilling in Trinidad and Tobago and have secured an additional rig, which will soon commence drilling in a prospective block north of our Shenzi operations in the Gulf of Mexico."
The company's other major exploration focus is copper.
"Internal collaboration is very important and we are leveraging our petroleum business geoscience to identify prospective sediment hosted copper deposit basins," Tyler said.
"Similarly, we are adopting technology from petroleum and applying directional drilling techniques to copper exploration," she added.
