Sasol Petroleum Australia, a subsidiary of oil from coal pioneer Sasol, has secured a 30 percent interest in an Australian oil joint venture while agreeing to pick up roughly 60 percent of the costs.

The agreement was announced this week by Oilex, the independent oil and gas exploration and production company based in Australia.

As operator of the exploration permit spanning the outer Carnarvon Basin lying off Western Australia's shore, Oilex said the joint venture entered into a Farmout Agreement under which each party has agreed to assign a six percent of their participating interest in the permit to Sasol Petroleum Australia.

The other companies participating in the joint venture are the Hindustan Petroleum Corporation, the Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation, Bharat PetroResources and Videocon Industries.

These parties, which each held a 20 percent interest in the permit, will end up holding a 14 percent stake each after the assignment to Sasol Petroleum Australia.

"In return for its 30 percent participating interest, Sasol has agreed to bear 60 percent of certain costs associated with the acquisition of approximately 1064 square kilometres of 3D seismic data in the permit," Oilex said in a statement on Tuesday.

The assignment is subject to obtaining necessary government approval and registration.

Oilex said the WA 388P permit was awarded to the joint venture in August 2006 under a competitive offshore licensing round.

"The work commitment in the primary term of the licence is for seismic reprocessing which has been completed and a 3D seismic survey which will be met in full on completion of the Rose Survey, anticipated to start within the next 10 days using the vessel Geowave Champion," it said.

At 2.00pm shares in Sasol were trading 3.38 percent or 13.60 rand up at 404.60 rand on the JSE.

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