Emperor Energy (ASX:EMP) used its RIU Good Oil & Gas presentation to sharpen the Judith story around one central point, the field is moving closer to a real appraisal event.
The company has executed a term sheet with Valaris to secure the VALARIS 107 jack-up rig for Judith-2, targeting an April 2027 drilling window. The plan is for around 30 days of drilling followed by 15 days of flow testing.
That matters because Judith-1 was never flow tested.
Judith-2 is designed to answer the question that has sat over the asset for years.
Can the gas move at commercial rates?
The rig changes the timeline
VALARIS 107 is already operating in the Gippsland Basin and is expected to become available after its current work finishes in March 2027.
Emperor has committed US$1.5M under the term sheet, with a further US$2M due on execution of the full drilling contract. The full-form agreement is targeted for the end of October 2026.
The operating day rate is US$165,000.
Judith already has scale
The gas story is not starting from zero.
Judith holds 165.7Bcf of 2C Contingent Resources and 1.86Tcf of P50 Prospective Resources across the Greater Judith Area, with another 622Bcf of P50 Prospective Resources in the Kipper/Golden Beach horizons.
The field is also close to existing infrastructure.
Emperor’s preferred development concept is a 14km subsea tie-back to the Woodside/Exxon Tuna platform, with a development case of ~A$330M to A$420M and potential production of 30PJ to 45PJ per year.
That proximity is central to the pitch.
Judith does not need to become a giant greenfield build to matter.
Table 1: Judith’s resource.
The market backdrop is doing some of the work
The other side of Emperor’s argument is timing.
The company is positioning Judith into an East Coast gas market where southern production is forecast to fall materially over the coming years, while Victoria is expected to face tighter peak-day conditions around the end of the decade.
That makes new southern gas more valuable strategically than it might have been a few years ago.
Gas will still be needed across industrial demand, homes, firming generation and data centres.
So the Judith story is becoming less about whether gas demand exists, and increasingly about whether Emperor can prove deliverability and get the field into development.
Policy is starting to matter too
The company is also watching the evolving gas reservation debate.
New southern supply could play a role in any future market-based offset mechanism, although the final structure of the policy remains unsettled.
That is not yet a bankable outcome, but it gives Judith another potential commercial pathway if policy begins to reward genuinely new domestic supply.
What comes next
There are three near-term milestones.
Finalise the drilling contract.
Secure environmental approval.
Then drill and flow-test Judith-2 in April 2027.
The environmental plan has been resubmitted to NOPSEMA, with Emperor expecting approval by the end of September.
The asset has already been discovered, the resource has already been independently assessed, now the story is heading toward the test that matters most.
Whether Judith can flow.
