The annual Good Oil conference is a valuable evnue for the promtion of the open acreage for offshore petroleum exploration and the showcasing of GA's innovative work in petroleum geoscience.

Promotional flyer showing the proposed gazettal blocks of the 2017 offshore acreage release and providing releavnt geoscientific and administrative information.

Promotional flyer comprising map showing petroleum exploration permits, pipelines and basins in Australia

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Composite well log plots displaying Gamma Ray, Sonic and Caliper log curves, all open-file biostratigraphy and organic geochemistry data, show types and comments, lithology, casing, SWC and core locations, interpreted regional sequences and results of source rock modelling. All plots are in PDF and EPS format. Also contains Browse Basin timescale, biozonation and stratigraphy chart.

The Australian Government formally releases new offshore exploration areas at the annual APPEA conference. These areas are located across various offshore hydrocarbon provinces ranging from mature basins with ongoing oil and gas production, to exploration frontiers. A total of 23 areas are released for work-program bidding and six areas for cash bidding. The two work-program bidding rounds will remain open until 29 October 2015 and 21 April 2016 respectively, while cash bid submissions will close on 4 February 2016. The 2015 Release Areas are located in thirteen distinct regional geological provinces across eight basins and all were supported by industry nominations. Six areas are located in the Bonaparte Basin, two of which are cash bid areas over the Turtle/Barnett oil accumulations. The Browse Basin is represented by three areas in the Caswell Sub-basin and one area on the Yampi Shelf. In support of recent exploration activities and success, one large area has been gazetted in the central Roebuck Basin. The Northern Carnarvon Basin offers eleven areas on the Exmouth Plateau and in the Dampier Sub-basin including four for cash bidding. This year, the usual predominance of North West Shelf Release Areas is counterbalanced by seven large areas in the Bight, Otway, Sorell and Gippsland basins. This includes one area in the Ceduna Sub-basin, three areas in the deep water Otway Basin, one area in the northern Sorell Basin and two areas in the south-eastern Gippsland Basin. Receiving nominations for these areas highlights the industry's interest in evaluating the hydrocarbon potential of Australia's underexplored southern margin. 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.

Promotional flyer showing the proposed gazettal blocks of the 2016 offshore acreage release and providing releavnt geoscientific and administrative information.

The Onshore Energy Systems Group have undertaken a regional study on the prospectivity of the southern Georgina Basin, and present here a synopsis of the initial results from this multidisciplinary project. The Georgina Basin is a Neoproterozoic to Lower Devonian sedimentary basin covering 325,000 km2 of western Queensland and the Northern Territory (Dunster et al., 2007; Kruse et al., 2013; Munson, 2014). It is a northwest-southeast-trending extensional basin, where thick marine Cambrian and Ordovician sediments are preserved in its two southern depocentres, the Dulcie and Toko synclines, and a thinner succession is present in the Undilla Sub-basin to the northeast. Within these depocentres, the Thorntonia Limestone and Arthur Creek Formation (Figure 1) contain potential source rocks (Ambrose et al., 2001; Boreham and Ambrose, 2012). Most of the southern Georgina Basin is under license for petroleum exploration, with explorers targeting the carbonate-dominated Arthur Creek Formation for both conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons. A data package that includes raw and reprocessed HyLogging data from 25 wells in the Georgina Basin was recently released (Smith and Huntington, 2014). The HyLogging data map the mineralogical variations within formations and were used in conjunction with wireline log and biostratigraphic data to refine stratigraphic correlation. The HyLogging data were re-processed using a common set of mineral scalars (i.e., spectroscopic indices) to create an internally-consistent, basin-wide dataset. Other datasets, including total organic carbon (TOC) content, X-ray diffraction (XRD) measurements and biostratigraphy were also integrated with the Hylogging data. The 'hot shale' of the Arthur Creek Formation has a characteristic spectral response of decreasing albedo and an increased short wave infra-red (SWIR) aspectral response with increasing depth to the base of the Arthur Creek Formation (Figure 2), which both appear to correlate with increasing core total gamma and TOC. These inter-relationships may be used to better characterise and identify potential source rock units in the basin. Recent biostratigraphic work has highlighted an age discrepancy in the prospective organic-rich `hot shale in the base of the middle Cambrian Arthur Creek Formation (Figure 1). This unit is present in the two major southern depocentres, the Dulcie and Toko synclines, where it has previously been considered as correlative. Recent results, however, suggest that the basal 'hot shale' is either significantly younger in the Toko Syncline than in the Dulcie Syncline, or represents a condensed section in the former. Middle Cambrian carbon isotope excursions have been correlated across a number of Australian basins and can be used to test correlative models across the Georgina depocentres. High resolution sampling across this middle Cambrian section has been carried out in a number of wells in the Dulcie Syncline and in the Undilla Sub-basin, where the age equivalent Inca Shale is penetrated. Carbon isotopes from organic carbon (kerogen) as well as carbon and oxygen isotope ratios of four carbonate mineral phases (calcite, ankerite, dolomite and siderite) were analysed and these data are compared with existing carbon isotope stratigraphy published from neighboring wells (Donnelly et al., 1988; Lindsay et al., 2005; Creveling et al., 2013). Initial results corroborate the new biostratigraphic interpretation.

Maps, plots and data sheets of average source rock richness, quality and maturity for five Mesozoic time slices are presented for offshore Northwest Australia (Carnarvon to Arafura basins). These maps/data facilitate regional assessment of the source rock potential of the region, and provide a framework for future exploration of the region's petroleum systems. The maps were compiled at a scale of 1:3 million, and are supplemented by two-way-time isopach maps for each time slice derived from interpretation of Geoscience Australia's regional seismic grid of the area (approximately 35,000 line km). Age vs TOC, S2 and HI, and source rock crossplots were also compiled from screened raw Rock-Eval pyrolysis data and displayed as inserts in the maps. The maps and open-file data used in the compilation of the maps can be viewed directly, or printed as a hard copy.

The Cooper Basin is a late Carboniferous-Middle Triassic intracratonic basin in northeastern South Australia and southwestern Queensland. The basin is one of Australia's premier onshore hydrocarbon producing provinces and, by providing domestic gas for the East Coast Gas Market, is nationally significant. This study reviews the distribution, quality and maturity of source rocks across the Cooper Basin and forms part of Geoscience Australia's source rock program. All publicly-available total organic carbon (TOC) content and Rock-Eval pyrolysis data for the Cooper Basin were compiled into a single database, quality checked and compiled by well and formation to highlight the multiple viable source rock units throughout the Permian. The Toolachee and Patchawarra formations represent the principal source rocks in the basin. These comprise coals and carbonaceous shales deposited in fluvial deltaic and peat swamp environments and show good to very good oil and gas source potential. Additional source intervals include the gas prone lacustrine Roseneath and Murteree shales, as well as coals and carbonaceous shales of the Daralingie and Epsilon formations. Permian source rock distribution was investigated using lithofacies mapping combined with geochemistry data. Lithofacies maps published for South Australia were integrated with electrofacies data from Queensland to produce new, internally consistent, net source thickness maps for key intervals, including coals and carbonaceous shales of the Toolachee and Patchawarra formations, and the Roseneath and Murteree shales. Pyrolysis data that indicate the presence of an in-situ source rock with remaining hydrocarbon generation potential (i.e. TOC > 2% and S1+S2 > 3 mg hydrocarbons/g rock) were mapped by formation, demonstrating the broad extent of Permian source rocks across the basin. Toolachee and Patchawarra source rocks are present in most major depocentres, including the Windorah Trough and Ullenbury Depression in the northern part of the basin, where maximum coal thicknesses still reach more than 10 m. Source rocks within the Roseneath and Murteree shale are generally restricted to the southern Cooper Basin.