Santos says it will drill what may be Australia’s deepest exploration wells in its efforts to find shale gas and oil in the Northern Territory.

The mining giant has launched its ten-week drilling program at Tanumbirini Station, 420 kilometres south-east of Katherine, saying probes will be in the ground within a fortnight.

The well to be dug has a target depth of around 4,000 metres.

Santos says a fracking program could start as early as next year if its explorations pay off.

General Manager of unconventional resources, Colin Cruickshank, has told the ABC that the company is going deep.

“This is one of the deepest onshore exploration wells in Australia, so we're mobilising what I believe is probably the largest operating drill rig in the country to this area,” he said.

“We're going that deep because we want to drill through the whole section of what we see as the prospective shale region.”

“From our seismic readings that we took last year, we believe there could be over 2,000 metres of prospective shale there which may contain hydrocarbons, primarily gas, but maybe some light oils there as well.”

Mr Cruickshank says millions of litres of locally water will be needed throughout the drilling and fracking processes.

“These bore holes will generally be deeper down than what the local pastoralists will be chasing for water, they'll be after the fresher drinking quality water for cattle,” he said.

“We can go deeper because we can use brackish water. That's what we'll be seeking to use.

“And we'll also be placing our bores far enough away, and we'll be monitoring the station bores, to make sure we don't interfere with them.”