With 2019 drawing to a close, Stockhead takes a look at some of our favourite resource project and prospect names that have given us a bit of a chuckle.

Carnarvon Petroleum (ASX:CVN) – Dorado

Carnarvon Petroleum and its operating partner Santos (ASX:STO) spent considerable time working up their Dorado field in the North West Shelf off the northwest coast of Western Australia.

And it proved to be well worth the effort with the Dorado-3 well flowing more than 11,000 barrels of oil and 21 million cubic feet of gas per day during testing in October, right at the higher end of Santos’ expectations.

Given its success, the aptly named project certainly draws to mind comparisons with the mythical golden city of El Dorado.

Northern Minerals (ASX:NTU) – X-Men characters

Rare earths specialist Northern Minerals has never failed to amuse us with its series of prospect names at its Browns Range project inspired by the characters from the X-Men series of comic books by Marvel (you know the same mob that brought us The Avengers?).

Of these, the Dazzler prospect – named after the X-Men character who converts sound into blinding light and energy beams – takes the cake with a resource of 140,000 tonnes grading 2.23 per cent total rare earth oxides (TREO).

There is room to grow given that recently completed infill and step-out reverse circulation drilling has returned intercepts from surface of up to 7.71 per cent including 7,502 parts per million dysprosium.

There’s more of course, Wolverine and Gambit are just waiting to burst into action.

Dazzler has the ability to convert sound into light Pic:X-Men/Marvel Comics

Big Star Energy (ASX:BNL) – Science fiction ship names

Boldly going where no resource company has gone before, helium explorer Big Star Energy takes its project names from ships that populate various science fiction films and television series.

And there are some very familiar names here. From Star Wars, you have the well known Millennium Falcon (broken into two prospects) while the Trekkies among you will like the Voyager and Enterprise prospects.

Less well known – but dear to this writer’s heart – are the Galactica and Serenity prospects.

Of these, Enterprise is emerging as the leading prospect at this stage given its proximity to the Model Dome field that briefly produced helium before it was acquired by the US federal government for its strategic reserve.

Key Petroleum (ASX:KEY) – Wye Knot, Wye Here

Good questions to ask and perhaps good prospects for some oil and gas drilling, Key Petroleum’s Wye Knot and Wye Here prospects are located to the north of the producing Waitsia gas field in Western Australia’s Perth Basin.

Key has already applied for approvals to drill Wye Knot-1 because why not?

A little more seriously, Wye Knot-1 is located down-dip from the Wye-1 gas discovery that was drilled in 1996 and flowed about 4.4 million cubic feet and 2.5 million cubic feet of gas from the Bookara and Arranoo sandstone reservoirs respectively.

Both reservoirs exhibited live oil shows during drilling, with Key saying that the oil that was originally located at the Wye location has been displaced to a down-dip rim by gas migration.

Wye Knot-1 seeks to test this interpretation and targets about 1.4 million barrels of oil.

As for Wye Here, we found it on an older map, so we are not sure either.

Marenica Energy (ASX:MEY) – Oobagooma

We at Stockhead are not sure exactly what it means, but any excuse to rattle off Oobagooma gets our vote.

Oobagooma, Oobagooma, Oobagooma, Oobagooma.

Now that it is out of my system, Marenica recently acquired Oobagooma as part of an entire package of Australian uranium tenements.

It is located in Western Australia’s West Kimberley region and was explored by AFMEX between 1983 and 1986.

Todd River Resources (ASX:TRT) – Famous Left-handed people

Base metals explorer Todd River Resources has a penchant for naming its prospects after famous lefties such as Adam Gilchrist, Jimmy Hendrix and Rod Laver.

At the core of its portfolio is the Hendrix prospect, which has a resource of 2.6 million tonnes grading 10.5 per cent zinc equivalent and remains open at depth and to the south.

Its Gilly and Gilly North prospects offer the potential for further growth with initial drilling returning mineralisation in every hole.

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