Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum

The Victorian Government is undertaking a major program, the Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum (VIMP), to support and promote mineral and petroleum exploration in Victoria. This is now being supplemented by the Provincial Victoria - Gold Undercover initiative. The VIMP initiative has provided Victoria with the most complete coverage of airborne geophysical survey data, ground gravity data and GIS geological data of any state in Australia. Total expenditure under the Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum is $A30.5 million.

Underground gold mining, Stawell

The continuing investment in the Victorian Initiative for Minerals and Petroleum is proving successful in attracting responsible business investment and continues to make Victoria an attractive area for mineral and petroleum exploration. It has already attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in private sector exploration expenditure to Victoria, and has been instrumental in the discovery of new gas fields in the Otway Basin, mineral sands in northwest Victoria and new gold prospects throughout the state.

Projects under way or completed include acquisition of industry standard airborne magnetic and radiometric data and gravity data, seismic reflection acquisition and processing, new generation geological mapping and geophysical interpretation, petroleum database development and stratigraphic drilling. Geological data for the state are available as Geoscientific Data Packages in GIS format. These are invaluable to explorers for project generation and better exploration targeting.

An expanded database is being developed for exploring the sedimentary basins, both onshore and offshore or extending our geological knowledge in regions that are outside the intensively developed Gippsland Basin fields, and have been only 'lightly' explored. Comprehensive regional and hydrocarbon prospectivity packages over vacant and frontier areas are in preparation for acreage releases. Management of valuable seismic data, petroleum database information and petroleum geochemistry work is expected to stimulate further new interest in Victoria's petroleum resources potential. Minerals Exploration Initiatives Petroleum Exploration Initiatives

Offshore Platform, Gippsland Basin.