<div>Australia’s Energy Commodity Resources (AECR) provides estimates of Australia’s energy commodity reserves, resources, and production as at the end of 2021. The 2023 edition of AECR also includes previously unpublished energy commodity resource estimates data compiled by Geoscience Australia for the 2021 reporting period. The AECR energy commodity resource estimates are based primarily on published open file data and aggregated (de identified) confidential data. The assessment provides a baseline for the production and remaining recoverable resources of gas, oil, coal, uranium and thorium in Australia, and the global significance of our nation’s energy commodity resources.</div>

<div>The energy and resources industries are two essential pillars of Australia’s economy and vital sectors in the global transition to a sustainable and net-zero economy. To enhance Australia’s competitiveness, there is an urgent need to explore technical and strategic challenges and opportunities to unlock domestic hydrogen and green steel development pathways that are suitable for the Australian resources and manufacturing ecosystem. </div><div><br></div><div>Held on 30 August 2023 in Perth, Western Australia, this workshop provided Australian stakeholders in the hydrogen, iron ore and government sectors a forum to share, discuss and provide insight on a broad range of aspects relevant to hydrogen and green steel development opportunities across Australia—including identifying investment hurdles, technical challenges and knowledge gaps, and fostering new innovation and collaboration opportunities.</div><div><br></div><div>As part of the Exploring for the Future program, Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with Monash University, premiered its Green Steel Economic Fairways tool, which utilises geoscience knowledge and data to highlight regional opportunities of high economic potential for hydrogen and green steel industries in Australia.</div><div><br></div><div>The recording of the workshop presentations is available on YouTube.</div>

<div>As part of the EFTF Program, Geoscience has completed a 4-year multi-disciplinary study to investigate the energy resource potential of selected onshore basins within central Australia under the Australia’s Future Energy Resources (AFER) Project. A key component of the AFER Project has been a qualitative and quantitative play-based assessment of hydrocarbon resources and geological storage of CO2 (GSC) potential within the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins (Bradshaw et al., 2024a). This study has provided a regional interpretive data set which includes regional seismic and well log interpretations (Bradshaw et al.&nbsp;2024b, 2024c); depth-structure and isochore maps for 14 play intervals (Iwanec et al., 2024); gross-depositional environment maps for 14 play intervals (Bradshaw et al., 2024c); and petrophysical analysis of wireline log data from 23 wells (Spicer et al., 2024). This report provides a high-level summary of the hydrogeology of Pedirka and western Eromanga basins as background information for the other assessments and some findings from the 3D models that may inform future understanding of the hydrogeology of these basins. </div><div><br></div><div>The assessment area extends over ~210,000 km2 across the Northern Territory, South Australia and Queensland (Figure 1). Much of the assessment area underlies national parks in South Australia and Queensland. No petroleum exploration access is allowed in the Munga Thirri Simpson Desert Conservation Park or the Witjira National Park (Dalhousie Springs area) in South Australia or Munga Thirri National Park in Queensland (Figure 1).</div><div><br></div><div>The AFER assessment area is situated within the Kati Thanda-Lake Eyre surface water catchment. The catchment’s arid climate and ephemeral river flow regime (Evans et al., 2024) makes groundwater a critical source of water for the environment, industry and communities, especially during dry periods. Groundwater dependent features in the region include water supplies for communities, industry and pastoral stations, as well as springs and other groundwater dependent ecosystems. Groundwater resources are managed by state and territory jurisdictions (see: NT Government, 2013; Queensland Government, 2017, SA Government, 2021). Across the three jurisdictions, the most important groundwater resources are those of the western Eromanga Basin (a part of Great Artesian Basin or GAB). In collaboration with state jurisdictions the Commonwealth provides a cross-jurisdictional policy framework for the GAB as well as the Lake Eyre surface water basin (DCCEEW, 2024). Key management goals include maintaining artesian pressures, water quality and viability of GAB dependent ecosystems, including springs.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><br></div><div><br></div>

<div>Steelmaking value chains are economically important to Australia, but the need to decarbonize traditional steel-making processes could disrupt existing supply lines. Hydrogen-based iron and steel production offers one pathway for reducing the carbon intensity of steel. Here, we present maps assessing the costs of hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron oxides (to produce hot briquetted iron), optionally coupled with steelmaking in an electric arc furnace (i.e. the H2-DRI-EAF value chain). Developed as part of the Exploring for the Future program and in collaboration with Monash University, these models build off the functionality of the Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper (beta release), with additional enhancements to the modelling algorithm to reflect constant furnace operation, the incorporation of costings to transport the produced hot briquetted iron or steel to domestic ports, and the optimisation of facility capacities. The capacity of facilities (including solar and wind generation, proton exchange membrane [PEM] electolysis, battery storage, and hydrogen storage tanks) are determined by the 1 Mtpa production target and the local availability of renewable energy resources, as modelled according to 2019 data sourced from the Renewables.Ninja (https://www.renewables.ninja/; Pfenninger & Staffell, 2016; Staffell & Pfenninger, 2016). The high-resolution (approximately 5.5 km pixels) maps reflect our preferred technology cost assumptions (see Wang et al., 2023) for the year 2025. Iron concentrate feedstocks are assumed to cost AU$150 per tonne, reflecting approximate costs for 65 % Fe pellets as derived from magnetite ores. Conversions to USD assume US$1.00 = AU$0.73.</div><div><br></div><div>Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information to inform decision-making by government, community and industry on the sustainable development of Australia's mineral, energy and groundwater resources. By gathering, analysing and interpreting new and existing precompetitive geoscience data and knowledge, we are building a national picture of Australia's geology and resource potential. This leads to a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of all Australians. This includes supporting Australia's transition to a low emissions economy, strong resources and agriculture sectors, and economic opportunities and social benefits for Australia's regional and remote communities. The Exploring for the Future program, which commenced in 2016, is an eight year, $225m investment by the Australian Government.</div>

<div>Global steel demand is forecast to grow in the coming decades with continued development across Asia and Africa. Over the same period, the International Energy Agency suggests that the carbon intensity of steel production will need to decrease rapidly to align with projected pathways to net zero emissions by 2050. Balancing these competing priorities is a challenge that could shift global steelmaking business models. With abundant resources of both iron ore and metallurgical coal, Australia has benefited significantly from traditional steelmaking value chains. In the face of potential disruption, how should Australia navigate the challenges and opportunities accompanying the transition to ’green’ steel? How can geoscience help to identify and leverage Australia’s specific advantages?&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>The Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper is a free, online tool that models the costs of hydrogen-based green ironmaking and steelmaking and maps how these costs vary across Australia. Developed through collaboration between Geoscience Australia and Monash University, it represents a novel approach to model multiple interconnected resource facilities. Following the Economic Fairways approach, the Mapper combines large-scale infrastructure and geoscience datasets to provide a high-level, geospatial analysis of the economic viability of hypothetical green steel projects. In doing so it creates a new capability within Australia—filling the void before the detail and expense of feasibility studies—to understand the broad contours of the decarbonization challenge, and to inform early-stage decision making in the pursuit of low-carbon steel. In this seminar, we introduce the Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper, demonstrate its capabilities, and discuss some of the insights it reveals.&nbsp;</div>

The Exploring for the Future program Showcase 2024 was held on 13-16 August 2024. Day 3 - 15th August talks included: <b>Session 1 – Hydrogen opportunities across Australia</b> <a href="https://youtu.be/pA9ft3-7BtU?si=V0-ccAmHHIYJIZAo">Hydrogen storage opportunities and the role of depleted gas fields</a> - Dr Eric Tenthorey <a href="https://youtu.be/MJFhP57nnd0?si=ECO7OFTCak78Gn1M">The Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper</a> - Dr Marcus Haynes <a href="https://youtu.be/M95FOQMRC7o?si=FyP7CuDEL0HEdzPw">Natural hydrogen: The Australian context</a> - Chris Boreham <b>Session 2 – Sedimentary basin resource potential – source rocks, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and groundwater</b> <a href="https://youtu.be/44qPlV7h3os?si=wfQqxQ81Obhc_ThE">Australian Source Rock and Fluid Atlas - Accessible visions built on historical data archives</a> - Dr Dianne Edwards <a href="https://youtu.be/WcJdSzsADV8?si=aH5aYbpnjaz3Qwj9">CO2: Where can we put it and how much will it cost?</a> - Claire Patterson <a href="https://youtu.be/Y8sA-iR86c8?si=CUsERoEkNDvIwMtc">National aquifer framework: Putting the geology into hydrogeology</a> - Dr Nadege Rollet <b>Session 3 – Towards a national inventory of resource potential and sustainable development</b> <a href="https://youtu.be/K5xGpwaIWgg?si=2s0AKuNpu30sV1Pu">Towards a national inventory of mineral potential</a> - Dr Arianne Ford <a href="https://youtu.be/XKmEXwQzbZ0?si=yAMQMjsNCGkAQUMh">Towards an inventory of mine waste potential</a> - Dr Anita Parbhakar-Fox <a href="https://youtu.be/0AleUvr2F78?si=zS4xEsUYtARywB1j">ESG mapping of the Australian mining sector: A critical review of spatial datasets for decision making</a> - Dr Eleonore Lebre View or download the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/149800">Exploring for the Future - An overview of Australia’s transformational geoscience program</a> publication. View or download the <a href="https://dx.doi.org/10.26186/149743">Exploring for the Future - Australia's transformational geoscience program</a> publication. You can access full session and Q&A recordings from YouTube here: 2024 Showcase Day 3 - Session 1 - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ho6QFMIleuE">Hydrogen opportunities across Australia</a> 2024 Showcase Day 3 - Session 2 - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ePZfgEwo0m4">Sedimentary basin resource potential – source rocks, carbon capture and storage (CCS) and groundwater</a> 2024 Showcase Day 3 - Session 3 - <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CjsZVK4h6Dk">Towards a national inventory of resource potential and sustainable development</a>

<div>The Pedirka, Simpson and western Eromanga basins in central Australia have undergone a chequered exploration history which has seen a total of only 42 wells drilled across a study area of ~210,000km2. Exploration initially focused on conventional hydrocarbons from the 1950s-1980s, before shifting towards coal seam gas (CSG) opportunities in the mid-2000s. Active petroleum systems have been proven in the region by a non-commercial oil discovery at Poolowanna 1 in 1977, and by several wells that showed evidence of residual oil columns. CSG exploration wells have confirmed the presence of thick, marginally mature coal intervals on the flanks of the basins, but are yet to evaluate the deeper troughs.</div><div>Geoscience Australia, the Northern Territory Geological Survey and the South Australian Department for Energy and Mining have been collaborating on the Australia’s Future Energy Resources project under the Australian government funded Exploring for the Future Program to undertake an assessment of the resource potential for conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, and the geological carbon and storage (GCS) potential of the greater Pedirka region. </div><div>The project applied a play-based exploration approach to qualitatively assess the resource potential of the region. The Carboniferous to Cretaceous stratigraphic interval was divided into 14 plays which were evaluated for the presence of sediment-hosted energy resources through post-drill analysis, gross depositional environment mapping and common risk segment mapping. The analysis identified energy resources and GCS potential across multiple plays and locations within the study area. These results demonstrate, that while the region is underexplored, it should not be overlooked by future exploration activities.</div> Published in The APPEA Journal 2023. <b>Citation:</b> Iwanec Jeremy, Strong Paul, Bernecker Tom (2023) Underexplored but not forgotten: assessing the energy resources potential of the greater Pedirka Basin region through play-based mapping. <i>The APPEA Journal</i><b> 63</b>, S251-S256. https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ22150

<div>The Petroleum Systems Summary database stores the compilation of the current understanding of petroleum systems information by basin across Australia. The Petroleum Systems Summary database and delivery tool provide high-level information of the current understanding of key petroleum systems for areas of interest. For example, geological studies in the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program have included the Canning, McArthur and South Nicholson basins (Carr et al., 2016; Hashimoto et al., 2018). The database and tool aim to assist geological studies by summarising and interpreting key datasets related to conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon exploration. Each petroleum systems summary includes a synopsis of the basin and key figures detailing the basin outline, major structural components, data availability, petroleum systems events chart and stratigraphy, and a précis of the key elements of source, reservoir and seal. Standardisation of petroleum systems nomenclature establishes a framework for each basin after Bradshaw (1993) and Bradshaw et al. (1994), with the source-reservoir naming conventions adopted from Magoon and Dow (1994).&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>The resource is accessible via the Geoscience Australia Portal&nbsp;(https://portal.ga.gov.au/) via the Petroleum Systems Summary Tool (Edwards et al., 2020).</div>

<div>The Carpentaria Basin is a Mesozoic basin located in the northernmost part of Australia and is centered around the Gulf of Carpentaria . It forms part of the Great Australian Superbasin that includes the Eromanga, Surat, Nambour and Clarence-Morton basins to the south, the Laura Basin, to the east, and the Papuan Basin to the north. In a west-east direction it extends for about 1250 km from the area of Katherine in the Northern Territory to the Great Dividing Range in Queensland. A small portion of the basin reaches the east coast of Queensland in the Olive River region. In a north-south direction it extends for over 1000 km from Cape York to Cloncurry, in Queensland. The basin has a total area of over 750,000 km2, comparable in size to the state of New South Wales. From a geographic standpoint the sediments of the Carpentaria Basin occur in three areas: offshore below the Gulf of Carpentaria, onshore to the west in the Northern Territory, and onshore to the east in Queensland. This report focuses on the geology and energy resource potential of the onshore areas of the basin but, to provide a broader understanding of the basin evolution there is, of necessity, some discussion of the geology offshore.</div><div><br></div>

<div>Understanding the hydrocarbon potential of Australia’s sedimentary basins is critical to ensuring the nation’s future energy security. The Pedirka and western Eromanga basins have proven petroleum potential with a sub-commercial oil discovery at Poolowanna 1 in the Poolowanna Trough and several wells drilled over the Colson Shelf and Madigan Trough showing evidence for residual oil zones. However, these basins remain relatively underexplored with only 42 petroleum wells drilled and relatively sparse 2D seismic data coverage. Geoscience Australia’s AFER Project has undertaken a qualitative and quantitative play-based assessment of the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins to enable a better understanding of their undiscovered hydrocarbon resources.</div><div><br></div><div>The AFER Project’s assessments are underpinned by new geological insights into the western Eromanga Basin and a supporting upscaled 3D geological model. A play-based common risk segment (CRS) mapping approach has been applied to eleven play intervals to delineate basin areas with relatively high prospectivity based on five geological risk elements: reservoir presence, reservoir effectiveness, top seal, trap presence, and hydrocarbon charge. Results from this qualitative component of the assessment indicate that the highest potential for future hydrocarbon discoveries is likely to be conventional oil resources across the Poolowanna Trough, Colson Shelf and Madigan Trough. The most prospective exploration targets are the Namur-Murta, Poolowanna and Peera Peera play intervals on a geological probability of success basis. The Peera Peera and Poolowanna play intervals have proven hydrocarbon charge from the Poolowanna 1 oil discovery but show poor reservoir quality (porosity <10%) in wells drilled across the Poolowanna Trough. These play intervals likely represent tight conventional oil exploration targets across their main play fairways in the Poolowanna Trough. The Namur-Murta interval has high reservoir qualities across all potentially prospective areas but has lower certainty regarding hydrocarbon charge with the most significant exploration result to date being a residual oil zone in the Madigan Trough. Moderate to high prospectivity for conventional oil is interpreted to occur in the Adori-Westbourne, Birkhead and Hutton play intervals over the eastern flanks of the Poolowanna Trough and western flanks of the Birdsville Track Ridge. The Walkandi, Upper Purni, Lower Purni and Crown Point play intervals are assessed as having moderate prospectivity for conventional oil over the Eringa Trough, Madigan Trough and Colson Shelf. </div><div><br></div><div>A quantitative assessment of the ‘Yet to Find’ hydrocarbon volumes has been undertaken to provide a play-level indication of the possible undiscovered conventional oil volumes. The risked volumes include a ‘Base Case’ that reflects the current exploration understanding of the basins, and a ‘High Case’ that reflects the potential impact of a new working petroleum system being discovered in the basins. The mean risked recoverable oil volume for the Base Case scenario total 22.2 MMbbl for the four plays evaluated (Namur-Murta, Poolowanna, Peera Peera and Lower Purni). About 70% of the risked mean volumes occur in the Poolowanna and Namur-Murta play intervals. Results from the High Case model highlight the significantly greater YTF potential across the basins if the geological requirement for a new working petroleum system eventuates from further exploration, with a total mean risked volume of 234.8 MMbbl for the three play intervals evaluated (Namur-Murta, Poolowanna and Lower Purni). Risked volumes are relatively evenly distributed across the three play intervals. &nbsp;&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div>Unconventional hydrocarbons are evaluated as being less prospective than conventional hydrocarbons in the western Eromanga basin. Shale oil plays have not previously been explored but may be present within organic-rich shales from the Poolowanna and Peera Peera play intervals. These shale oil plays are evaluated as being moderately prospectivity due to their thin and heterogeneous character. Coal seam gas (CSG) wells drilled into the Upper Purni and Lower Purni play intervals have to date only demonstrated the presence of gas-undersaturated coal seams over the Andado Shelf. However, CSG is the most likely hydrocarbon resource type to produce hydrocarbons from the Pedirka Basin if future exploration can identify sweet spots where different geological conditions occur that are conducive to preserving high gas saturations.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div>