Whitebark Energy soars after cracking code to unlock major WA gas play
- James Pearson
- Oct 29
- 3 min read
Whitebark Energy’s (ASX: WBE) shares soared as much as 85 per cent to 13 cents a share on massive turnover today after revealing it had cracked the code to a huge onshore gas field at the company’s 100 per cent-owned Warro project in Western Australia’s Perth Basin.
After years of being viewed as the giant that wouldn’t awwaken, the field has been jolted back to life by a modern petrophysical rethink that has pinpointed high quality dry-gas targets previously masked by water-bearing zones.
Hosting a whopping estimated 4.4 to 11.6 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of gas, Warro ranks as Western Australia’s single largest onshore gas resource, sitting just 200 kilometres north of Perth and only 30km from the Dampier-to-Bunbury pipeline, the State’s energy super-highway.
While the scale of Warro is off the charts and has never disputed, the challenge has always been the flow rates. In 1977, the Warro-1 well, drilled by WAPET – a joint venture established in 1952 between Caltex and Ampol – uncovered a significant natural gas discovery intersecting a massive 390-metre gas column.
However, when the well was fracked, it intersected broad intervals that included both gas and mobile-water zones. Rather than letting gas roar to surface, the stimulation inadvertently invited water back into the well, choking back flows to disappointing levels of 1–2 million cubic feet a day.
The company says a new independent study has finally revealed the culprit. Seasoned petrophysicist Steve Adams, with 38 years in the oil and gas industry, has re-interpreted data from every Warro well using updated analysis tools.
His work revealed thicker, cleaner gas-charged sections, particularly just above the basement in the Lower Yarragadee Formation, while also pinpointing the exact intervals where water tends to infiltrate. Now that the picture has been clarified, the company says a re-entry well has a real shot at unlocking massive commercial volumes.
This new interpretation gives us confidence that Warro still holds significant intervals of dry gas potentially capable of commercial flow. This is a major step forward in delivering one of Western Australia’s most significant onshore gas assets.
Whitebark Energy CEO Nik Sykiotis
WA’s wholesale gas prices have more than doubled since 2020 and the supply squeeze is biting hard. Locking in long-term gas is becoming a an increasingly costly headache for industry – which makes the timing of Whitebark’s Warro breakthrough look almost tailor-made for the moment.
Management says Warro is a near-pipeline giant which already has the hard data from drilled wells and flared gas at surface, proving the gas is real. Now it’s simply a case of cracking the right zones and turning the taps on.
To fast-track the redevelopment, Whitebark has raised $750,000 in a placement at 0.5 cents a share, with no discount to market - a rarity among ASX micro-caps. Notably, chairman Mark Lindh is personally tipping in $100,000, underscoring management’s confidence in the project.
The fresh funds will go into finalising re-completion designs, integrating Warro-3 and Warro-4 production data and moving quickly to physical testing. Positive flows could rapidly position the field and Whitebark as a crucial pillar in WA’s energy future.
Elsewhere, Whitebark has been busy preparing the ground work for an exploration well, expected in late 2026 at its massive Rickerscote “3H” prospect, part of the company’s massive 20,000-square-kilometre Alinya project in South Australia’s Officer Basin.
A recent Sproule ERCE study commissioned by Whitebark estimated that Rickerscote could be harbouring up to 1.2 billion kilograms of natural hydrogen, a hefty 209 billion cubic feet of helium and up to 153 million barrels of oil equivalent in hydrocarbons.
Few onshore gas fields have attracted as much debate as Warro. Even fewer have been given a second chance. If Whitebark’s new approach to Warro delivers the clean, high-rate gas it expects, the company could be celebrating one of the most significant onshore gas revivals the State has ever seen.
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