27-01-03 Woodside aims to find as much as 2 bn barrels of oil and gas during the next decade. ExxonMobil and Woodside Petroleum head up the biggest deepwater oil and gas exploration in Australia. The companies may increase oil and gas exploration spending by 13 % to $ 589 mm.
Kerr-McGee, the fourth-biggest independent oil and gas producer in the US, and Australia's top three oil companies, BHP Billiton, Woodside and Santos, all plan ocean wells in areas like the Great Australian Bight in the south and the Timor Sea in the north.

Australia needs to find more oil to prevent its import bill for the fuel jumping by $ 4.9 bn a year by 2010. The nation's last big oil find was the 200 mm barrel Laminaria field in the Timor Sea in 1995.