In 2017, 21 new offshore petroleum exploration areas have been released. The majority of the areas are located along the North West Shelf spanning the Westralian Superbasin from the Bonaparte Basin in the north-east to the Northern Carnarvon Basin in the south-west. New areas have been released in offshore south-eastern Australia with new opportunities provided in the Otway, Bass and Gippsland basins. Two large areas in the northern Perth Basin, an offshore frontier, complete the 2017 Acreage Release. All Release Areas are supported by industry nominations and one new cash bid area has been offered in the Dampier Sub-basin. Geoscience Australia continues to support industry activities by acquiring, interpreting and integrating pre-competitive datasets that are made freely available as part of the agency’s regional petroleum geological studies. A new regional 2D seismic survey was acquired in the Houtman Sub-basin of the Perth Basin, forming the basis of the latest prospectivity study carried out by Geoscience Australia. The results of the study are presented in the technical program of the 2017 APPEA conference. A wealth of seismic and well data, submitted under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006 (OPGSSA) are made available through the National Offshore Petroleum Information Management System (NOPIMS). Additional datasets are accessible through Geoscience Australia’s data repository. Presented at the 2017 Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association (APPEA) Conference.

<p>The Roebuck Basin on Australia’s offshore north-western margin is the focus of a regional hydrocarbon prospectivity assessment being undertaken by the North West Margin Energy Studies (NWMES) section. This offshore program is designed to produce pre-competitive information to assist with the evaluation of the hydrocarbon resource potential of the central North West Shelf and facilitate exploration investment in Australia. <p>The recent oil and gas discoveries at Phoenix South 1 (2014), Roc 1 (2015-16), Roc 2 (2016), Phoenix South 2 (2016), Phoenix South 3 (2018) and Dorado 1 (2018) wells in the Bedout Sub-basin demonstrate the presence of a petroleum system in Lower Triassic strata. The current study aims to better understand this new petroleum system and establish its extent. <p>As part of this program, a range of organic geochemical analyses were acquired on two crude oils from the Phoenix South 1 ST2 well with these data released in this dataset.

<p>The Roebuck Basin and adjoining Beagle Sub-basin are underexplored areas on Australia’s North West Shelf and are undergoing renewed exploration interest since the discovery of oil at Phoenix South 1 and gas at Roc 1, 2 in the Bedout Sub-basin. A well folio of 24 offshore wells across the Beagle, Bedout, Rowley and Barcoo sub-basins was completed as part of Geoscience Australia’s assessment of hydrocarbon prospectivity across the region. The study consists of composite well log plots summarising lithology, stratigraphy, GA’s newly acquired biostratigraphic and geochemical data and petrophysical analysis, in conjunction with revised sequence interpretations. <p>The wells included in the well folio package are: <p>Anhalt 1, Barcoo 1 ST2, Bedout 1, Bruce 1, Cossigny 1, De Grey 1A ST1, Delambre 1, Depuch 1, East Mermaid 1B ST1, Hanover South 1, Huntsman 1, Keraudren 1. Lagrange 1, Minilya 1, Nebo 1, Omar 1, Phoenix 1, Phoenix 2, Phoenix South 1 ST1 ST2, Picard 1, Poissonnier 1, Roc 1, Steel Dragon 1 and Wigmore 1

The central North West Shelf has been the focus of a regional mapping program by Geoscience Australia targeting the Triassic succession. Resulting updates to the regional structural understanding are presented, showcasing variations in structural style across the region. The Triassic section is affected by fault sets with two predominant orientations across the study area: N-trending and NE-trending, with localised areas of NW-trending faulting. There is typically vertical separation of faulting between the upper Triassic and lower Triassic successions, resulting in different fault fabrics mapped on the top and base Triassic surfaces. In some areas major faults penetrate through the Mesozoic section and into the Paleozoic basement, forming features with significant displacement such as the Thouin Graben, Whitetail Graben, Naranco High, and the Barcoo Sub-basin half graben. Isochore maps reveal two Triassic depocentres separated by an area of thin Triassic extending from the inboard Bedout Sub-basin out to the western Rowley Sub-basin and NE Exmouth Plateau. This new mapping shows that there is a poor correlation between Triassic depocentres and existing basin boundaries, making it difficult to clearly describe regions of interest and their evolution. Greater integration of new structural insights into a regional structural framework is necessary to improve our understanding of the tectonostratigraphic evolution of the margin, and the stratigraphic and structural aspects of exploration risk. This abstract was submitted to/presented at the 2019 Australasian Exploration Geoscience Conference (AEGC 2019) (https://www.aig.org.au/aegc-2019-data-to-discovery/)

The Roebuck Basin on Australia’s offshore north-western margin is the focus of a regional hydrocarbon prospectivity assessment being undertaken by the Offshore Energy Studies section. This offshore program is designed to produce pre-competitive information to assist with the evaluation of the hydrocarbon resource potential of the central North West Shelf and facilitate exploration investment in Australia. The recent oil and gas discoveries at Phoenix South 1 (2014), Roc 1 (2015-16), Roc 2 (2016), Phoenix South 2 (2016), Phoenix South 3 (2018), Dorado 1 (2018), Dorado 2 (2019) and Dorado 3 (2019) wells in the Bedout Sub-basin demonstrate the presence of a petroleum system in Lower Triassic strata (Thompson, 2020; Thompson et al., 2015 and 2018). The current study aims to better understand this new petroleum system and establish its extent. As part of this program, a range of organic geochemical analyses were acquired on petroleum fluids from the Roc 1 and Roc 2 wells with these data released in this report.

<p>A regional mapping program conducted by Geoscience Australia addressed stratigraphic and structural aspects of exploration risk within the Triassic succession of the Roebuck Basin and parts of the adjacent sub-basins (central North West Shelf, Figure 1). <p>Seismic horizons of regional significance were mapped using 2D and 3D seismic surveys. Seismic survey coverage is shown in Figure 1. 2D surveys include regional deep surveys such as AGSO s110, AGSO s120, and PGS New Dawn. 3D surveys include Admiral, Beagle, CNOOC, Curt, Lord, Naranco, Polly, Whitetail, and a 5 x 5 km extract (used with permission) from the TGS Capreolus MC3D. Synthetic seismograms (Nguyen et al., 2019) were used to tie seismic horizons to wells. <p>The mapped horizons are placed within a regional tectonostratigraphic framework by Abbott et al. (2019, their Figure 2). This data pack comprises seismic horizon grids and isochron grids generated from the TR10.0_SB (base Triassic), TR17.0_SB (Mid–Triassic), and J10.0_SB (top Triassic) seismic horizons (Figure 2). Fault maps compiled at the TR10.0 _SB and J10.0_SB are also included.

The Roebuck Basin on Australia’s offshore north-western margin is the focus of a regional hydrocarbon prospectivity assessment being undertaken by the Offshore Energy Systems Section. This offshore program is designed to produce pre-competitive information to assist with the evaluation of the hydrocarbon resource potential of the central North West Shelf and attract exploration investment to Australia. As part of this program, molecular and isotopic analyses were undertaken by Geoscience Australia on gas samples from the well Dorado 1 and the raw data from these analyses are released in this report.

<p>The Roebuck Basin on Australia’s offshore north-western margin is the focus of a regional hydrocarbon prospectivity assessment being undertaken by the North West Margin Energy Studies Section (NWMES). This offshore program is designed to produce pre-competitive information to assist with the evaluation of the hydrocarbon resource potential of the central North West Shelf and attract exploration investment to Australia. <p>The recent oil and gas discoveries at Phoenix South 1 (2014), Roc 1 (2015-16), Roc 2 (2016), Phoenix South 2 (2016), Phoenix South 3 (2018) and Dorado 1 (2018) in the Bedout Sub-basin demonstrate the presence of a petroleum system in Lower Triassic strata. The current study aims to better understand this new petroleum system and establish its extent. <p>As part of this program, compositional and isotopic analyses were undertaken by Geoscience Australia on gas samples from the wells Roc 1 and Roc 2 and data from these analyses are released in this dataset.

The Roebuck Basin and the adjoining Beagle and Barcoo sub-basins are underexplored areas on Australia’s North West Shelf that are undergoing renewed exploration interest since the discovery of oil at Phoenix South 1 in 2014 and subsequent hydrocarbon discoveries in the Bedout Sub-basin. A well folio of 24 offshore wells across the Beagle, Bedout, Rowley and Barcoo sub-basins has been compiled as part of Geoscience Australia’s hydrocarbon prospectivity assessment across the region. It consists of composite well log plots and well correlations that summarise lithology, lithostratigraphy, Geoscience Australia’s newly acquired biostratigraphic and geochemical data as well as results of petrophysical analysis. A revised sequence-stratigraphic interpretation, key petroleum system elements and drilling results are also documented. The wells dominantly target Triassic shoreward facies (Keraudren Formation) as the primary reservoir objective and Jurassic fluvial-deltaic (Depuch Formation) and/or Lower Cretaceous sandy deltaic facies as the secondary objective. The Keraudren Formation sandstones are sealed intra-formationally either by discontinuous units and/or by the regional Cossigny Member. The Jurassic Depuch Formation sandstones are sealed by regional Lower Cretaceous mudstones. Both charge and structure have been identified as critical issues in the Roebuck Basin. In the Beagle Sub-basin, seal integrity and migration pathways are also considered high risk. Well correlations have identified differences in the basin history and provide insights into the distribution of facies and other characteristics of the Jurassic and Triassic successions. <b>Citation:</b> Nguyen Duy, Rollet Nadege, Grosjean Emmanuelle, Edwards Dianne S., Abbott Steve, Orlov Claire, Bernardel George, Nicholson Chris, Kelman Andrew, Khider Kamal, Buckler Tamara (2019) The Roebuck Basin, Beagle and Barcoo Sub-basin well folio. <i>The APPEA Journal</i><b> 59</b>, 920-927.

The Roebuck Basin on Australia’s offshore north-western margin is the focus of a regional hydrocarbon prospectivity assessment being undertaken by the Offshore Energy Systems Section. This offshore program is designed to produce pre-competitive information to assist with the evaluation of the hydrocarbon resource potential of the central North West Shelf and attract exploration investment to Australia. The recent oil and gas discoveries at Phoenix South 1 (2014), Roc 1 (2015-16), Roc 2 (2016), Phoenix South 2 (2016), Phoenix South 3 (2018), Dorado 1 (2018) and Dorado 2–3 (2019) in the Bedout Sub-basin demonstrate the presence of a petroleum system in Lower Triassic strata (Grosjean et al., 2021; Rollet et al., 2019). As part of this program, a range of organic geochemical analyses were acquired on petroleum fluids from the Dorado 1 and Roc 2 wells with these data released in this report.