The head of an Australian oil company says any fossil fuels taken from new land in Queensland's Channel Country will stay in Australia, but it could take years before oil or gas flows.
Bridgeport Energy has been declared the preferred tenderer across an extra 270,000 hectares of land between Innamincka and Thargomindah along the South Australian-Queensland border.
Bridgeport already has about 90,000 hectares of "oil-producing acreage" in the Cooper-Eromanga basin and processes oil at Queensland's only inland oil refinery in Eromanga.
The land allocated for exploration is on the Queensland-South Australia border. (Supplied: Google Maps)
The state government has been ramping up land allocations to mining companies since 2025.
Bridgeport Energy chief executive Christian Lange said he wanted to work "very, very closely" with landholders including graziers and traditional owners before any exploration began.
"We need to be cognisant that our disturbance on that land is zero effectively by the time we pack up and leave," he said.
Agriculture-conservation alliance wants assurances
Western Rivers Alliance is a cooperative between graziers, traditional owners and conservationists advocating to stop new oil and gas activities on Channel Country flood plains.
The latest sites are not within the protected Channel Country flood plains where fracking was banned two years ago, but parts are within 5 to 10 kilometres of the boundary.
Coordinator Riley Rocco said the alliance was "neutral" on mining outside the flood plains.
"As a collective, our position is for the activity to stay off the flood plain, which this does achieve,"
Mr Rocco said.
"But the activity could come quite close to the flood plain and obviously we are keen to make sure that any oil and gas or any industrial activity stays managed well outside of the flood plain in order to not have an adverse impact on those significant river and flood plain areas."
In May 2013, a major oil spill in the Channel Country at a Santos-owned well involved the loss of 250,000 litres of crude oil, which flowed for 2 kilometres before the leak was stopped.
The Queensland Department of Environment did not prosecute Santos at the time but admitted damage could have been severe if the leak had occurred during floodtime.
Mr Lange said impacts on groundwater, fauna, flora, roads and other "land disturbances" would be considered before new exploration begins.
He said the small-scale company would use seismic waves to determine whether there were enough "commercial flows" of oil or gas underground.
"I would anticipate that it's probably the best part of two years to obtain your authority to prospect, and then preparing to do seismic surveys, whether it's 2D, 3D or a combination of all those things," he said.
"Within a couple years, we'd aim to drill the first well."
Gas exploration was banned in some parts of the Channel Country in 2024. (Supplied: Pew Charitable Trusts)
The latest round of tenders also included 62,500 hectares for the ASX-listed Vintage Energy in the Channel Country, while a four-business consortium won 30,600 hectares of land in the Taroom Trough.
In a statement, Queensland Resources Minister Dale Last said increasing the supply of fuels was the "only solution to bring down the cost of energy".
The state government has awarded 12 sites for oil or gas exploration since 2025.