A large proportion of Australia’s onshore sedimentary basins remain exploration frontiers. Industry interest in these basins has recently increased due to the global and domestic energy demand, and the growth in unconventional hydrocarbon exploration. In 2016 and 2018, Geoscience Australia released an assessment of several central Australian basins that summarised the current status of geoscientific knowledge and petroleum exploration, and the key questions, for each basin. This publication provides a comprehensive assessment of the geology, petroleum systems, exploration status and data coverage for the Adavale Basin.

<div>This data package provides petrophysical interpretations by Geoscience Australian and the South Australia Department for Energy and Mining (SADEM) for 23 wells generated in support of the energy resource assessments under the Australia’s Future Energy Resources (AFER) project in the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins. Interpreted petrophysical data in this data package include [BB1]&nbsp;[MB2]&nbsp;volume of clay/shale, porosity (total and effective), relative permeability, formation water salinity (NaCl equivalent), and apparent resistivity of water.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The AFER project is part of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) Program—an eight year, $225 million Australian Government funded geoscience data and precompetitive information acquisition program 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, Geoscience Australia is building a national picture of Australia’s geology and resource potential. This will help support a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of all Australians. The EFTF program is supporting Australia’s transition to a low emissions economy, industry and agriculture sectors, as well as economic opportunities and social benefits for Australia’s regional and remote communities. Further details are available at http://www.ga.gov.au/eftf.This new data package consists of composite logs and supporting data which includes interpreted volume of clay/ shale, porosity, permeability and salinity.</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>The data package includes the following datasets: </div><div>1)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Composite logs (PDF)</div><div>2)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Well logs (ASCII LAS)</div><div>3)&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Well header information (Microsoft Excel™)[BB3]&nbsp;[MB4]&nbsp;</div><div>&nbsp;</div><div>These petrophysical interpretations are being used to support the AFER Project’s play-based energy resource assessments in the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins by building 3D geological models that include derived rock property maps.

<div>As part of the Exploring For The Future (EFTF) program, the Australia’s Future Energy Resources (AFER) project has investigated the potential of energy resource commodities in the Pedirka/western Eromanga basins region targeting conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons as well as evaluating the suitability of sedimentary sections to store carbon dioxide.</div><div>The interpretation of new biostratigraphic and reprocessed seismic data provided new insights into the regional geology of this previously explored region. The Permian, Triassic and Jurassic depositional history of the study area is largely recorded by extensive fluvial-lacustrine sediments, including changes from braided to meandering river systems and sustained periods of flood-plain environments in which thick sequences of coal-bearing strata developed. During the Cretaceous, expanding shallow marine environments were established in the western part of the Pedirka/western Eromanga region.</div><div>Age-control obtained from palynological analysis and the mapping of key seismic horizons yielded an improved understanding of the extent and character of unconformities which define breaks and changes in depositional processes. Results from new regional stratigraphic correlations initiated a comprehensive review of previously established basin definitions in the greater Pedirka/western Eromanga area. </div><div>While confirming the stacked nature of these basins which hold sedimentary records from the early Paleozoic to the Late Cretaceous, changes to stratigraphic basin boundaries have been applied to more correctly reflect the impact of unconformity related depositional breaks. As a result, the Lower and Middle Triassic Walkandi Formation is now assigned to the upper section of the Pedirka Basin, while the Upper Triassic Peera Peera Formation represents commencement of deposition in the western Eromanga Basin, thereby abandoning the recognition of the Simpson Basin as a separate Triassic depocenter.&nbsp;</div><div><br></div><div><br></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>

This report represents the first output from a study designed to understand and identify residual oil zones in Australia, with the aim of developing this potential resource using CO2 –EOR techniques. This work is part of the Residual Oil Zone (ROZ) module in the Exploring For The Future (EFTF) programme, which runs from 2020-2024. The work presented here is a collaborative study between Geoscience Australia and CSIRO. ROZ potentially represent a new and viable oil resource for Australia, while at the same time providing an additional CO2 storage avenue through application of CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR). These water-saturated reservoirs, which contain a moderate amount of residual oil and resemble water-flooded conventional oil fields, can be associated with conventional fields (brownfields) or occur with no associated main pay zone (greenfields). Both types of ROZ are currently produced commercially through CO2-EOR in the Permian Basin, USA, and are of growing interest internationally, but our understanding of ROZ in the Australian context is lacking. The first section of this report identifies and discusses the key parameters and factors that influence the efficiency with which ROZ can be produced. These include fluid-rock and fluid-fluid interactions, which may affect injectivity and sweep of hydrocarbons. We also discuss the effects of reservoir heterogeneity as it relates to flow dynamics and also the effects of pore space configuration. The first section concludes with a discussion of CO2 storage associated with ROZ development. In the second section, we discuss two different injection strategies with which to develop ROZ; carbonated brine injection and water alternating gas injection. The final section outlines details of the workflow that will be applied in the EFTF ROZ module over the coming years. Our proposed workflow is a three pronged approach which involves core flooding experiments, pore scale modelling and petrophysical analysis to identify potential ROZ in key Australian basins. In addition to plain CO2 injection, two other promising EOR techniques namely CO2-WAG and carbonated brine injection are also considered in this workflow. The main objectives of this workflow are to: • assess and identifying estimated oil recovery potential from a target ROZ by either of three EOR injection strategies, • identify the best injection strategy for a ROZ • identify the CO2 storage and utilization potential

<div>The “Australia’s Future Energy Resources” (AFER) project, funded under the Government’s “Exploring for the Future” (EFTF) program has been completed. The project’s four modules have evaluated a mixture of energy resource commodities, including natural gas, hydrogen, subsurface storage opportunities for carbon dioxide and hydrogen. They are complimented by several targeted basin inventories which outline the current geological knowledge of energy resources in underexplored, data-poor regions. Several publicly available data sets have been generated and published under the AFER project, including 3,750&nbsp;line-km of reprocessed 2D seismic data, acquired in the Pedirka and western Eromanga basins, of which key lines have been interpreted and integrated with geological and petrophysical well log data. Relative prospectivity maps have been produced for five energy resource commodities from 14&nbsp;play intervals to show the qualitative variability in prospectivity of these resources, including quantitative resource assessments where warranted. Results from the AFER project have helped to identify and geologically characterise the required energy resource commodities to accelerate Australia’s path to net zero emissions.</div> Presented at the Australian Energy Producers (AEP) Conference & Exhibition (https://energyproducersconference.au/conference/)

The Source Rock and Fluids Atlas delivery and publication services provide up-to-date information on petroleum (organic) geochemical and geological data from Geoscience Australia's Organic Geochemistry Database (ORGCHEM). The sample data provides the spatial distribution of petroleum source rocks and their derived fluids (natural gas and crude oil) from boreholes and field sites in onshore and offshore Australian basins. The services provide characterisation of source rocks through the visualisation of Pyrolysis, Organic Petrology (Maceral Groups, Maceral Reflectance) and Organoclast Maturity data. The services also provide molecular and isotopic characterisation of source rocks and petroleum through the visualisation of Bulk, Whole Oil GC, Gas, Compound-Specific Isotopic Analyses (CSIA) and Gas Chromatography-Mass Spectrometry (GCMS) data tables. Interpretation of these data enables the characterisation of petroleum source rocks and identification of their derived petroleum fluids that comprise two key elements of petroleum systems analysis. The composition of petroleum determines whether or not it can be an economic commodity and if other processes (e.g. CO2 removal and sequestration; cryogenic liquefaction of LNG) are required for development.

<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>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>

Petroleum geochemical datasets and information are essential to government for evidence-based decision making on natural resources, and to the petroleum industry for de-risking exploration. Geoscience Australia’s newly built Data Discovery Portal (https://portal.ga.gov.au/) enables digital discoverability and accessibility to key petroleum geochemical datasets. The portal’s web map services and web feature services allow download and visualisation of geochemical data for source rocks and petroleum fluids, and deliver a petroleum systems framework for northern Australian basins. The Petroleum Source Rock Analytics Tool enables interrogation of source rock data within boreholes and field sites, and facilitates correlation of these elements of the petroleum system within and between basins. The Petroleum Systems Summary Assessment Tool assists the user to search and query components of the petroleum system(s) identified within a basin. The portal functionality includes customised data searches, and visualisation of data via interactive maps, graphs and geoscientific tools. Integration of the petroleum systems framework with the supporting geochemical data enables the Data Discovery Portal to unlock the value of these datasets by affording the user a one-stop access to interrogate the data. This allows greater efficiency and performance in evaluating the petroleum prospectivity of Australia’s sedimentary basins, facilitating and accelerating decision making around exploration investment to ensure Australia’s future resource wealth <b>Citation:</b> Edwards, D.S., MacFarlane, S.K., Grosjean, E., Buckler, T., Boreham, C.J., Henson, P., Cherukoori, R., Tracey-Patte, T., van der Wielen, S., Ray, J. and Raymond, O., 2020. Australian source rocks, fluids and petroleum systems – a new integrated geoscience data discovery portal for maximising data potential. In: Czarnota, K., Roach, I., Abbott, S., Haynes, M., Kositcin, N., Ray, A. and Slatter, E. (eds.) Exploring for the Future: Extended Abstracts, Geoscience Australia, Canberra, 1–4.