In April 2015 Geoscience Australia (GA) acquired 908 km (full-fold) Gippsland Southern Margin Infill 2D Seismic data using Gardline's M/V Duke. The survey is designed to better resolve the Foster Fault System and provide better integration between the GDPI10 survey and the existing surveys in the central deep. The data underwent pre-stack depth migration with a deghosting algorithm during processing. The dataset includes intermediate processing products as well as final preSTM and preSDM and associated velocities.

This web service shows the spatial locations of potential CO2 storage sites that are at an advanced stage of characterisation and/or development. The areas considered to be at an advanced stage are parts of the Cooper Basin in central Australia, a portion of the Surat Basin (Queensland), the offshore Gippsland Basin (Victoria), where the CarbonNet Project is currently at an advanced stage of development and the Petrel Sub-basin. This service will be presented in the AusH2 Portal.

This dataset shows the spatial locations of potential CO2 storage regions that are at an advanced stage of characterisation and/or development and are expected to be operating by 2030. The areas considered to be at an advanced stage are parts of the Cooper Basin in central Australia, a portion of the Surat Basin (Queensland) and the offshore Gippsland Basin (Victoria), where the CarbonNet Project is currently at an advanced stage of development. We have also considered the offshore Barrow Sub-basin (part of the Northern Carnarvon Basin) (WA), where the Gorgon CO2 Injection Project is occurring on Barrow Island. An earlier version of this dataset was originally published in Feitz et al (2019) “Prospective hydrogen production regions of Australia” and the current version has been updated to include a portion of the offshore Petrel Sub-basin (Bonaparte Basin), offshore Northern Territory. This dataset is used in Geoscience Australia's Hydrogen Economic Fairways Tool (HEFT), which is available for public use at the AusH2 website or at ga.gov.au/heft. This dataset is published with the permission of the CEO, Geoscience Australia.

This Record forms part of a study under the Exploring For The Future (EFTF) program (2020-2024). The Residual Oil Zone Project was designed to understand and identify residual oil zones in Australia, with the aim of developing this potential hydrocarbon and CO2 geological storage resource through CO2–Enhanced Oil Recovery. The work presented here is a collaborative study between Geoscience Australia and GeoGem Consultants. Residual Oil Zones (ROZ) represent a new and potentially viable oil resource for Australia, while at the same time providing a means to use and store carbon dioxide (CO2) through the application of CO2 enhanced oil recovery (CO2-EOR). These naturally water-flooded and water-saturated reservoirs, which contain a moderate amount of residual oil, 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 USA, and are of growing interest internationally, but have not yet been explored in Australia. CO2-EOR has been in widespread practice in the USA since the oil shocks of the 1970’s. While tertiary CO2 injection usually targets oil remaining in fields that have been subject to water-flooding, there has been a parallel adoption of practices to recover vast amounts of paleo-oil that existed when many of these reservoirs were much fuller, before relatively recent (in geologic time) events caused structural and seal changes, resulting in natural water-flooding and/or migration of much of the oil out of the reservoir. The Permian Basin in Texas contains many examples where such Residual Oil Zones (ROZ’s) were found beneath conventional oil reservoirs. These ROZ are unproductive to conventional water flood operations but offer the possibility of an extra 9-15% recovery (of the ROZ OIP at discovery). This work reviews the lessons or insights that can be gained from the USA regarding ROZ field developments.

Internationally, the number of carbon capture and storage (CCS) projects has been increasing with more than 61 new CCS facilities added to operations around the globe in 2022, including six projects in Australia (GCCSI, 2022). The extraction of reservoir fluid will be an essential component of the CCS workflow for some of projects in order to manage reservoir pressure variations and optimise the subsurface storage space. While we refer to reservoir fluid as brine throughout this paper for simplicity, reservoir fluids can range from brackish to more saline (briny) water. Brine management requires early planning, as it has implications for the project design and cost, and can even unlock new geological storage space in optimal locations. Beneficial use and disposal options for brine produced as a result of carbon dioxide (CO2) storage has been considered at a regional or national scale around the world, but not yet in Australia. For example, it may be possible to harvest energy, water, and mineral resources from extracted brine. Here, we consider how experiences in brine management across other Australian industries can be transferred to domestic CCS projects.

Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is a central component of many proposed pathways to reach net zero CO2 emissions by 2050. Even under conservative estimates, successful deployment of CCS projects at scale will require a substantial investment in the selection and development of new sequestration sites. While several studies have considered the potential costs associated with individual sequestration projects, and others have evaluated the costs of capture and sequestration in a generic manner, few have examined how regional differences in transport distances and reservoir properties may affect the overall costs of sequestration projects. In this abstract, we outline a new model to assess the costs associated with new carbon sequestration projects. The model evaluates the cost of CCS projects accounting for regional variations in transport distance and cost and well the storage properties of individual reservoirs. We present preliminary results from the modelling tool, highlighting potential opportunities for new CCS projects.

In May 2013, Geoscience Australia, in collaboration with the Australian Institute of Marine Science, undertook a marine survey of the Leveque Shelf (survey number SOL5754/GA0340), a sub-basin of the Browse Basin. This survey provides seabed and shallow geological information to support an assessment of the CO2 storage potential of the Browse sedimentary basin. The basin, located on the Northwest Shelf, Western Australia, was previously identified by the Carbon Storage Taskforce (2009) as potentially suitable for CO2 storage. The survey was undertaken under the Australian Government's National CO2 Infrastructure Plan (NCIP) to help identify sites suitable for the long term storage of CO2 within reasonable distances of major sources of CO2 emissions. The principal aim of the Leveque Shelf marine survey was to look for evidence of any past or current gas or fluid seepage at the seabed, and to determine whether these features are related to structures (e.g. faults) in the Leveque Shelf area that may extend to the seabed. The survey also mapped seabed habitats and biota to provide information on communities and biophysical features that may be associated with seepage. This research, combined with deeper geological studies undertaken concurrently, addresses key questions on the potential for containment of CO2 in the basin's proposed CO2 storage unit, i.e. the basal sedimentary section (Late Jurassic and Early Cretaceous), and the regional integrity of the Heyward Formation (the seal unit overlying the main reservoir). The survey collected one hundred and eleven seabed sediment samples that were analysed for their grain size, textural composition and carbonate content. This dataset includes the results of grain size analysis measured by laser diffractometer.

Statements of existing knowledge are compiled for known mineral, coal, hydrocarbon and carbon capture and storage (CCS) resources and reserves in the Cooper Basin. This data guide illustrates the current understanding of the distribution of these key resource types within the Cooper Basin region based on trusted information sources. It provides important contextual information on the Cooper Basin and where additional details on discovered resources can be found. To date, mineral or coal deposits have not been found in the Cooper Basin, due to its depth. There are significant hydrocarbon resources found in the basin, including conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons. The Cooper Basin has been a major producer of oil and gas since the 1960s (Smith, Cassel and Evans, 2015). It is one of the largest sources of onshore hydrocarbon production in Australia. Some of the largest unconventional gas resources are contained in the basin. This is mostly basin-centred gas. The geology in the Cooper Basin is considered suitable for use in Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects. The Cooper Basin and overlying Eromanga Basin contain 2 CCS projects that are currently being developed.

<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/)

Statements of existing knowledge are compiled for known mineral, coal, hydrocarbon and carbon capture and storage (CCS) resources and reserves in the Galilee Basin region. This data guide illustrates the current understanding of the distribution of these key resource types within the Galilee Basin region based on trusted information sources. It provides important contextual information on the Galilee Basin and where additional details on discovered resources can be found. The Galilee Basin region contains 6 known metallic mineral deposits, with most of these containing the critical mineral vanadium. There are 17 coal deposits found in the basin containing thermal and metallurgical coal. The primary form of coal in the deposits is thermal coal. The Galilee Basin hosts large coal tonnages, with known black coal resources of approximately 33 billion tonnes. The Galilee Basin and overlying basins are known to contain significant hydrocarbon resources. The majority of the known hydrocarbon resources are found in the Julia Creek oil shale deposits located in the Eromanga Basin above the Galilee Basin. Moderate coal seam gas (CSG) resources have also been identified in the basin; however, conventional gas resources are more limited. At this time, there are no active or planned Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) projects in the basin.