Lakes Oil and PetroChina Company’s subsidiary Research Institute of Petroleum Exploration and Development-Northwest (RIPED) have entered into a research agreement to study the development of tight gas in Gippsland Basin, Australia.

Lakes Oil chairman Robert Annells said the research institute recognised that the onshore section of the basin has extensive untapped oil and tight gas.

Under the agreement RIPED will research Lake Oil’s petroleum tight gas geosciences technology, match it with similar work already carried out in China and provide advanced seismic re-processing.

The research partners will use Lake Oil’s data to evaluate possible reservoirs and liquids to provide a basis for commercialisation.