PEP 11 covers 4,576 km² of the offshore Sydney Basin immediately adjacent to the largest gas market in Australia and is a high impact exploration project.

Bounty’s farm in partner Advent Energy Ltd (“Advent”) has proven an active hydrocarbon generation and migration system as well as establishing an inventory of leads and prospects with prospective resources of 4.7 TCF gas at the P50 confidence level.

The potential of this proven petroleum basin has been enhanced by the confirmation of the presence of apparent ongoing hydrocarbon seeps.  Sub-bottom profile data, swath bathymetry, seismic and echo sounder data collected by Geoscience Australia along the continental slope / permit margin has demonstrated active erosional features in conjunction with geophysical indications of gas escape.

The operator has previously interpreted significant seismically indicated gas features.  Key indicators of hydrocarbon accumulation features have been interpreted following review of the 2004 seismic data which was reprocessed in 2010.  The seismic features include apparent hydrocarbon related diagenetic zones (HRDZ), amplitude versus offset (AVO) anomalies and potential flat spots.

Mapped prospects and leads within the offshore Sydney Basin are generally located less than 50 km from Australia’s largest energy market – the Sydney-Wollongong-Newcastle greater metropolitan area.  This area has a population of approximately 5,000,000 people.  Traditionally, all natural gas used in New South Wales has been piped in from South Australia and the Bass Strait.  However, studies by the Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) and the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA) state that those sources may not be able to meet the demand for gas in the medium to longer term.

The PEP 11 joint venture has demonstrated considerable gas generation and migration in the offshore Sydney Basin, with the previously observed mapped prospects and leads remaining highly prospective for gas.

On 20 January  2025 Bounty and the Operator announced that they had been given notice by NOPTA on 17 January
2025 that the Joint Authority had refused the Applications to vary and suspend the PEP 11 conditions.
The PEP-11 Permit nonetheless continued in force and the holders were given notice by NOPTA that they may apply for renewal.
The Joint Venture, including Bounty, had statutory legal rights to seek a Judicial Review of the decision by the Minister and NOPTA to refuse the PEP 11 Applications.

As a result the Operator applied to the Federal Court of Australia with an Originating Application for judicial review pursuant to s 5 of the Administrative Decisions (Judicial Review) Act 1977 (Cth) and s39B of the Judiciary Act 1903 (Cth) to review the Decision of 17 January 2025 against the Commonwealth-New South Wales Offshore Petroleum Joint Authority, constituted under section 56 of the Act. The Decision challenged is the Joint Authority’s refusal of the Applications to vary and suspend the conditions.