Bridgeport Energy has been declared preferred tenderer across an extra 270,000 hectares of land between Innamincka and Thargomindah, along the South Australian-Queensland border. The company already holds about 90,000 hectares of oil-producing acreage in the Cooper-Eromanga basin and processes oil at Queensland's only inland refinery in Eromanga.
Chief executive Christian Lange said any oil or gas from the new land would stay in Australia, but cautioned that production was years away. He said the company wanted to work very closely with landholders, including graziers and traditional owners, before 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.
Mr Lange said impacts on groundwater, fauna, flora, roads and other land disturbances would be considered before exploration. The company plans to use seismic surveys to test for commercial flows, with the first well targeted within a couple of years after securing an authority to prospect.
The state government has been ramping up land allocations to mining companies since 2025.
The Western Rivers Alliance, a cooperative of graziers, traditional owners and conservationists, said the new sites are not within the protected Channel Country flood plains where fracking was banned two years ago, but parts lie 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," he said.
But he said the alliance wanted any industrial activity managed well outside the flood plain to avoid adverse impacts on significant river and flood plain areas.
The region has a history of spills. In May 2013, a Santos-owned well lost 250,000 litres of crude oil, which flowed for two kilometres before the leak was stopped. Queensland's environment department did not prosecute Santos, but admitted damage could have been severe if the leak had occurred during floodtime.