US oil and player Apache has made what is being feted by some as potentially Australia’s largest oil discovery in the last 30 years, fuelling hopes of a new oil province located off the north-west coast.

The field found by the Phoenix South-1 well, which was targeting gas rather than oil, could have potentially up to 300 million barrels of oil in place, according to Apache. Only a portion of that volume, however, would be recoverable, analysts said.

Apache claims to have found the largest Australian oil deposit in decades offshore in WA's Canning Basin. Credit:Apache

The news put a rocket under the shares of one of Apache’s junior partners in the drilling venture, Carnarvon Petroleum, which almost trebled to 24¢ on Monday.

But the $157 million surge in the oil and gas minnow’s market value was seen as overblown by some analysts, given the very early analysis of the drilling results.