Legacy product - no abstract available

Legacy product - no abstract available

Australia has a thriving oil and gas industry with expanding infrastructure and many exploration opportunities. Geologically the country contains potential for large oil and gas discoveries with extensive sedimentary basins. Australia is also one of the world leaders in providing low cost geological data with an open Acreage Release process and competitive taxation regimes. Politically Australia is very stable with a very high standard of living and a long-standing democratic culture based on the rights of the individual and the rule of the law. There is a free market philosophy which welcomes foreign investment - Australia has no mandatory local equity requirements and has no government owned oil companies. Government facilitation of investment includes fast-tracking of approvals processes for major projects. This CD provides some basic Australia data including: Oil and Gas Resources of Australia 2003 This publication is the definitive reference on exploration, development and production of Australia's petroleum resources. It covers exploration, reserves, undiscovered resources, development, coalbed methane resources, production, crude oil and shale oil and supporting information and statistics. It includes a forecast of Australia's crude oil and condensate production up to the year 2020, and sustainability indicators for petroleum resources. Information on Australia's petroleum data availability is also included. An estimate of Australia's undiscovered oil and gas potential and a review of geological sequestration of carbon dioxide in Australia is included. Australian Research and Promotional Material Australian research includes research papers for Australia, Australia regions (Northwest Shelf and the Southern Margin) and CO2 Sequestration. Promotional materials refer to pamphlets which outline geological products available from Geoscience Australia and contacts for obtaining these products. This material is grouped by region with the research papers. Geoscience Australia Online Databases Demonstration The Geoscience Australia Petroleum Databases Demonstration is a Microsoft Powerpoint presentation containing instructions on how to use Geoscience Australia's online Petroleum Databases located at: www.ga.gov.au/oracle/apcrc/ This output represents the data which is considered open file and commercial-in-confidence. Petroleum Databases available at Geoscience Australia include: the Australian Geological Provinces Database, the Petroleum Information Management System (PIMS) GIS , the National Petroleum Wells Database and the National Geoscience GIS

Legacy product - no abstract available

Chiefly charts and maps, includes explanatory notes

The Australian Government formally releases new offshore exploration areas at the annual APPEA conference. In 2010, thirty-one areas in five offshore basins are being released for work program bidding. Closing dates for bid submissions are either six or twelve months after the release date, i.e. 11 November 2010 and 12 May 2011, depending on the exploration status in these areas and on data availability. The 2010 Release Areas are located in Commonwealth waters offshore Northern Territory, Western Australia, and South Australia, comprising intensively explored areas close to existing production as well as new frontiers. The Westralian Superbasin along the North West Shelf continues to feature prominently and is complimented by a new frontier area in offshore SW Australia (Mentelle Basin) and by two areas in the Ceduna/Duntroon Sub-basins in the eastern part of the Bight Basin. The Bonaparte Basin is represented by three areas in the Petrel Sub-basin and two areas in the Vulcan Sub-basin. Further southwest, four large areas are being released in the outer Roebuck Basin, a significantly underexplored region. This year, the Carnarvon Basin provides 16 Release Areas of which three are located in the Beagle Sub-basin, five in the Dampier Sub-basin, five in the Barrow Sub-basin, three on the Exmouth Plateau and three in the Exmouth Sub-basin. The largest singular Release Area covers much of the Mentelle Basin in offshore SW Australia and two areas are available in the Ceduna and Duntroon sub-basins as part of South Australia's easternmost section of the Bight Basin. The 2010 Offshore Acreage Release offers a wide variety of block sizes in shallow as well as deep water environments. Area selection has been undertaken in consultation with industry, the States and Territory. As part of Geoscience Australia's Offshore Energy Security Program, new data has been acquired in offshore frontier regions parts of which are being published on the Mentelle Basin

A companion volume to 'The geology and petroleum potential of the Clarernce-Moreton Basin, New South Wales and Queensland' compiled and edited by A.T. Wells and P.E. O'Brien, Australian Geological Survey Organisation bulletin 241(1994).

1. Blevin et al.:Hydrocarbon prospectivity of the Bight Basin - petroleum systems analysis in a frontier basin 2. Boreham et al : Geochemical Comparisons Between Asphaltites on the Southern Australian Margin and Cretaceous Source Rock Analogues 3. Brown et al: Anomalous Tectonic Subsidence of the Southern Australian Passive Margin: Response to Cretaceous Dynamic Topography or Differential Lithospheric Stretching? 4. Krassay and Totterdell : Seismic stratigraphy of a large, Cretaceous shelf-margin delta complex, offshore southern Australia 5. Ruble et al : Geochemistry and Charge History of a Palaeo-Oil Column: Jerboa-1, Eyre Sub-Basin, Great Australian Bight 6. Struckmeyer et al : Character, Maturity and Distribution of Potential Cretaceous Oil Source Rocks in the Ceduna Sub-Basin, Bight Basin, Great Australian Bight 7. Struckmeyer et al: The role of shale deformation and growth faulting in the Late Cretaceous evolution of the Bight Basin, offshore southern Australia 8. Totterdell et al : A new sequence framework for the Great Australian Bight: starting with a clean slate 9. Totterdell and Bradshaw : The structural framework and tectonic evolution of the Bight Basin 10. Totterdell and Krassay : The role of shale deformation and growth faulting in the Late Cretaceous evolution of the Bight Basin, offshore southern Australia

Basin evolution of the Vlaming Sub-basin and the deep-water Mentelle Basin, both located offshore on the southwest Australian continental margin, were investigated using 2D and 3D petroleum system modelling. Compositional kinetics, determined on the main source sequences, were used to predict timing of hydrocarbon generation and migration as well as GOR evolution and phase behaviour in our 2D and 3D basin models. The main phase of petroleum generation in the Vlaming Sub-basin occurred at 150 Ma and ceased during following inversion and erosion episodes. Only areas which observed later burial have generated additional hydrocarbons during the Tertiary and up to present day. The modelling results indicate the likely generation and trapping of light oils for the Jurassic intervals for a variety of structural traps. It is these areas which are of greatest interest from an exploration point of view. The 2D numerical simulations in the Mentelle Basin indicate the presence of active hydrocarbon generating kitchen areas. Burial histories and generalized petroleum evolutionary histories are investigated.

The extreme variation in the natural endowment of petroleum resources between regions has been a key geo-political driver in the last century and may well remain so in the decades ahead. Most of the world?s oil is located in a latitudinal belt lying predominantly north of the equator, running from the Gulf of Mexico and Venezuela, to North Africa, through the Middle East, the Caspian and Central Asia and down to Indonesia. Klemme and Ulmishek (1991) calculated that this Tethyan Petroleum Province contained 68% of global original petroleum reserves. Its vast petroleum resources were derived largely from the organic rich marine rocks deposited in low latitude in restricted basins and on shallow carbonate shelves flanking the various Palaeozoic, Mesozoic and Cainozoic incarnations of the east-west orientated Tethys Ocean.