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.

All commercially produced hydrogen worldwide is presently stored in salt caverns. Through the Exploring for the Future program, Geoscience Australia is identifying and mapping salt deposits in Australia that may be suitable for hydrogen storage. The only known thick salt accumulations in eastern Australia are found in the Boree Salt of the Adavale Basin in central Queensland, and represent potentially strategic assets for underground hydrogen storage. The Boree Salt consists predominantly of halite that is up to 555 m thick in some wells. In 2021, Geoscience Australia contracted Intrepid Geophysics to develop a 3D geological model of the Adavale Basin, using well data and 2D seismic interpretation and focussing on the Boree Salt deposit. The 3D model has identified three main salt bodies that may be suitable for salt cavern construction and hydrogen storage. Further work and data acquisition are required to fully assess the suitability of these salt bodies for hydrogen storage. Disclaimer Geoscience Australia has tried to make the information in this product as accurate as possible. However, it does not guarantee that the information is totally accurate or complete. Therefore, you should not solely rely on this information when making a commercial decision. This dataset is published with the permission of the CEO, Geoscience Australia.

The preserved successions from the Mesoproterozoic Era (1600 to 1000 Ma) are a relatively understudied part of Australian geological evolution, especially considering that this era has a greater time span than the entire Phanerozoic. These rocks are mostly known in variably-preserved sedimentary basins overlying Paleoproterozoic or Archean cratons or at the margins of these cratons. Some metamorphosed equivalents occur within the orogens between or marginal to these cratons. Both energy and mineral resources are hosted in Australian Mesoproterozoic basins, including the highly-prospective organic rich shale units within the Beetaloo Sub-basin (Northern Territory), which form part of the Beetaloo Petroleum Supersystem. The primary aim for this record is to provide a consolidated state of knowledge of Australian basins or successions similar in age to that of the Mesoproterozoic Beetaloo Petroleum Supersystem. The findings of this report will assist prioritising future work, through improved geological understanding and resource prospectivity. This report presents an overview of 14 Mesoproterozoic-age sedimentary basins or successions and their current level of understanding, including location, basin architecture, stratigraphy and depositional environments, age constraints and mineral and energy resources. Basins or successions included in this record are unmetamorphosed or metamorphosed to very low-grade conditions. Recommendations are made for future work to address the main knowledge gaps identified from this review. While some of these basins have been the focus of recent intense study and data acquisition, the extent of knowledge varies broadly across basins. All basins reviewed in this record would benefit from further geochemical and geochronological analyses, and stratigraphic study to better understand the timing of depositional events and their correlation with nearby basins. Elucidation of the post-depositional history of alteration, migration of fluids and/or hydrocarbons would facilitate future exploration and resource evaluation.

<div>The Pedirka, Simpson and western Eromanga basins in central Australia have undergone a chequered exploration history which has seen a total of only 42 wells drilled across a study area of ~210,000km2. Exploration initially focused on conventional hydrocarbons from the 1950s-1980s, before shifting towards coal seam gas (CSG) opportunities in the mid-2000s. Active petroleum systems have been proven in the region by a non-commercial oil discovery at Poolowanna 1 in 1977, and by several wells that showed evidence of residual oil columns. CSG exploration wells have confirmed the presence of thick, marginally mature coal intervals on the flanks of the basins, but are yet to evaluate the deeper troughs.</div><div>Geoscience Australia, the Northern Territory Geological Survey and the South Australian Department for Energy and Mining have been collaborating on the Australia’s Future Energy Resources project under the Australian government funded Exploring for the Future Program to undertake an assessment of the resource potential for conventional and unconventional hydrocarbons, and the geological carbon and storage (GCS) potential of the greater Pedirka region. </div><div>The project applied a play-based exploration approach to qualitatively assess the resource potential of the region. The Carboniferous to Cretaceous stratigraphic interval was divided into 14 plays which were evaluated for the presence of sediment-hosted energy resources through post-drill analysis, gross depositional environment mapping and common risk segment mapping. The analysis identified energy resources and GCS potential across multiple plays and locations within the study area. These results demonstrate, that while the region is underexplored, it should not be overlooked by future exploration activities.</div> Published in The APPEA Journal 2023. <b>Citation:</b> Iwanec Jeremy, Strong Paul, Bernecker Tom (2023) Underexplored but not forgotten: assessing the energy resources potential of the greater Pedirka Basin region through play-based mapping. <i>The APPEA Journal</i><b> 63</b>, S251-S256. https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ22150

<div>The interpretation of AusAEM airborne electromagnetic (AEM) survey conductivity sections in the Canning Basin region delineates the geo-electrical features that correspond to major chronostratigraphic boundaries, and captures detailed stratigraphic information associated with these boundaries. This interpretation forms part of an assessment of the underground hydrogen storage potential of salt features in the Canning Basin region based on integration and interpretation of AEM and other geological and geophysical datasets. A main aim of this work was to interpret the AEM to develop a regional understanding of the near-surface stratigraphy and structural geology. This regional geological framework was complimented by the identification and assessment of possible near-surface salt-related structures, as underground salt bodies have been identified as potential underground hydrogen storage sites. This study interpreted over 20,000 line kilometres of 20&nbsp;km nominally line-spaced AusAEM conductivity sections, covering an area approximately 450,000 km2 to a depth of approximately 500&nbsp;m in northwest Western Australia. These conductivity sections were integrated and interpreted with other geological and geophysical datasets, such as boreholes, potential fields, surface and basement geology maps, and seismic interpretations. This interpretation produced approximately 110,000 depth estimate points or 4,000 3D line segments, each attributed with high-quality geometric, stratigraphic, and ancillary data. The depth estimate points are formatted for Geoscience Australia’s Estimates of Geological and Geophysical Surfaces database, the national repository for formatted depth estimate points. Despite these interpretations being collected to support exploration of salt features for hydrogen storage, they are also intended for use in a wide range of other disciplines, such as mineral, energy and groundwater resource exploration, environmental management, subsurface mapping, tectonic evolution studies, and cover thickness, prospectivity, and economic modelling. Therefore, these interpretations will benefit government, industry and academia interested in the geology of the Canning Basin region.</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>Steelmaking value chains are economically important to Australia, but the need to decarbonize traditional steel-making processes could disrupt existing supply lines. Hydrogen-based iron and steel production offers one pathway for reducing the carbon intensity of steel. The opportunities and challenges presented by this technology, for Australia, are obscured as its cost competitiveness depends on the interaction between multiple industrial processes, including feedstock requirements, storage options, and the availability of infrastructure. To address these problems, we have developed the Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper. This mapping tool enables user-driven assessments of the green iron or steel resource potential across Australia. The tool optimizes system capacities for renewable energy generation, battery storage, hydrogen electrolysis, and hydrogen storage to estimate the levelized costs of green steel and how these costs vary regionally. Here, we present examples of analysis and integration with other geospatial datasets. Our model compares favourably to previously published cost estimates while also providing granular, spatial considerations of resource potential. Examples demonstrate that the tool that can be used to inform decision-making in the development of actions to de-risk green steel development within Australia.</div>

<div>Steelmaking value chains are economically important to Australia, but the need to decarbonize traditional steel-making processes could disrupt existing supply lines. Hydrogen-based iron and steel production offers one pathway for reducing the carbon intensity of steel. Here, we present maps assessing the costs of hydrogen-based direct reduction of iron oxides (to produce hot briquetted iron), optionally coupled with steelmaking in an electric arc furnace (i.e. the H2-DRI-EAF value chain). Developed as part of the Exploring for the Future program and in collaboration with Monash University, these models build off the functionality of the Green Steel Economic Fairways Mapper (beta release), with additional enhancements to the modelling algorithm to reflect constant furnace operation, the incorporation of costings to transport the produced hot briquetted iron or steel to domestic ports, and the optimisation of facility capacities. The capacity of facilities (including solar and wind generation, proton exchange membrane [PEM] electolysis, battery storage, and hydrogen storage tanks) are determined by the 1 Mtpa production target and the local availability of renewable energy resources, as modelled according to 2019 data sourced from the Renewables.Ninja (https://www.renewables.ninja/; Pfenninger & Staffell, 2016; Staffell & Pfenninger, 2016). The high-resolution (approximately 5.5 km pixels) maps reflect our preferred technology cost assumptions (see Wang et al., 2023) for the year 2025. Iron concentrate feedstocks are assumed to cost AU$150 per tonne, reflecting approximate costs for 65 % Fe pellets as derived from magnetite ores. Conversions to USD assume US$1.00 = AU$0.73.</div><div><br></div><div>Geoscience Australia's Exploring for the Future program provides precompetitive information 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, we are building a national picture of Australia's geology and resource potential. This leads to a strong economy, resilient society and sustainable environment for the benefit of all Australians. This includes supporting Australia's transition to a low emissions economy, strong resources and agriculture sectors, and economic opportunities and social benefits for Australia's regional and remote communities. The Exploring for the Future program, which commenced in 2016, is an eight year, $225m investment by the Australian Government.</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.

<div>Geoscience Australia’s Onshore Basin Inventories project delivers a single point of reference and creates a standardised national basin inventory that provides a whole-of-basin catalogue of geology, petroleum systems, exploration status and data coverage of hydrocarbon-prone onshore Australian sedimentary basins. In addition to summarising the current state of knowledge within each basin, the onshore basin inventory reports identify critical science questions and key exploration uncertainties that may help inform future work program planning and decision making for both government and industry. Volume 1 of the inventory covers the McArthur, South Nicholson, Georgina, Wiso, Amadeus, Warburton, Cooper and Galilee basins and Volume 2 expands this list to include the Officer, Perth and onshore Canning basins. Under Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program, several new onshore basin inventory reports are being delivered. Upcoming releases include the Adavale Basin of southern Queensland, and a compilation report addressing Australia’s poorly understood Mesoproterozoic basins. These are supported by value-add products that address identified data gaps and evolve regional understanding of basin evolution and prospectivity, including petroleum systems modelling, seismic reprocessing and regional geochemical studies. The Onshore Basin Inventories project continues to provide scientific and strategic direction for pre-competitive data acquisition under the EFTF work program, guiding program planning and shaping post-acquisition analysis programs.</div>