Authors / CoAuthors
Hall, L.S. | Hill, A.J. | Radke, B. | Le Poidevin, S.R. | Boreham, C. | Menpes, S.
Abstract
The Cooper Basin is a Late Carboniferous-Middle Triassic intracratonic basin in north-eastern South Australia and south-western Queensland. The basin is Australia's premier onshore hydrocarbon producing province and is nationally significant, providing domestic gas for the East Coast Gas Market. Exploration activity in region is experiencing a revival with numerous explorers pursuing newly identified unconventional hydrocarbon plays, however the undiscovered unconventional gas resources in the basin remains poorly defined. This study reviews the hydrocarbon prospectivity of the Cooper Basin, with a focus on unconventional gas resources. Regional basin architecture is characterised through compilation and integration of formation tops, structure surfaces and isopach maps, indicating that the wider extent of the Toolachee and Patchawarra formations may extend further north in Queensland than previously mapped. Source distribution and quality are reviewed demonstrating the abundance of source material across the whole basin. The Toolachee and Patchawarra formations are the richest source units, however organic rich rocks areTOC is also present in the Nappamerri, Daralingie and Epsilon formations, and the Roseneath and Murteree shales. Petroleum systems modelling, incorporating new compositional kinetics, source quality and TOC maps, highlights the variability in burial, and thermal and hydrocarbon generation histories between depocentres. Although initial hydrocarbon generation occurred in the Permian, peak oil and gas expulsion across the basin occurred in the Cretaceous. Pressure distribution estimates are made for all major depocentres to better characterise variation in overpressure distribution. The Cooper Basin hosts a range of unconventional gas plays types, including the very extensive basin-centred gas play and tight gas accumulations in the Gidgealpa Group, deep coal seam gas associated with the Patchawarra and Toolachee formations, as well as the less-extensive shale gas plays in the Murteree and Roseneath sShales. However the overlapping nature of these plays makes it more convenient to consider them within the context of a single combined Gidgealpa Group unconventional gas play. The possible extent of the combined Gidgealpa Group gas play fairway is defined using a common risk segment mapping workflow. Low and high confidence play fairway extents are also calculated. In South Australia and the western most areas of Queensland, the combined gas play fairway maps show that the Nappamerri and Allunga troughs are highly prospective, along with the deepest areas of the Patchawarra and Arrabury troughs. The play fairway maps also shows prospectivity potential for unconventional gas further northeast in Queensland, including areas of the Windorah Tough and Ullenbury Depression, although reservoir thickness and maturity are the key risks for this play type outside the central depocentres and overpressure remains less well constrained due to lack of data. The prospectivity of the Cooper Basin for unconventional hybrid plays for gas far exceeds its currently known conventional resources by at least an order of magnitude. Whilst significant additional work is required to better characterise key petroleum systems elements, the play fairway area estimated for the combined Gidgealpa Group gas play is significantly larger than that of the Roseneath and Murteree shale gas plays alone, suggesting very large volumes of gas in place and highlighting the Cooper Basin's significance as a world class unconventional gas province.
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nonGeographicDataset
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79137
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- External PublicationAbstract
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- QLDSA
- Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC)
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- Earth Sciences
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- Published_Internal
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2014-01-01T00:00:00
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