NDI Carrara 1 is a deep stratigraphic well completed in 2020 as part of the MinEx CRC National Drilling Initiative (NDI), in collaboration with Geoscience Australia and the Northern Territory Geological Survey. It is the first stratigraphic test of the Carrara Sub-Basin, a newly discovered depocentre in the South Nicholson region. The well intersected Proterozoic sediments with numerous hydrocarbon shows, likely to be of particular interest due to affinities with the known Proterozoic plays of the Beetaloo Sub-basin and the Lawn Hill Platform, including two organic-rich black shales and a thick sequence of interbedded black shales and silty-sandstones. Alongside an extensive suite of wireline logs, continuous core was recovered from 283.9 m to total depth at 1750.8 m, providing high-quality data to support comprehensive analysis. Presently, this includes geochronology, geochemistry, geomechanics, and petrophysics. Rock Eval pyrolysis data demonstrates the potential for several thick black shales to be a source of hydrocarbons for conventional and unconventional plays. Integration of these data with geomechanical properties highlights potential brittle zones within the fine-grained intervals where hydraulic stimulation is likely to enhance permeability, identifying prospective Carrara Sub-basin shale gas intervals. Detailed wireline log analysis further supports a high potential for unconventional shale resources. Interpretation of the L210 and L212 seismic surveys suggests that the intersected sequences are laterally extensive and continuous throughout the Carrara Sub-basin, potentially forming a significant new hydrocarbon province and continuing the Proterozoic shale play fairway across the Northern Territory and northwest Queensland. This abstract was submitted and presented at the 2022 Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association (APPEA), Brisbane (https://appea.eventsair.com/appea-2022/)

Led by Geoscience Australia, Exploring for the Future (EFTF) is a A$225 million Australian Government program dedicated to exploring Australia’s resource potential and boosting investment. The EFTF program energy component aimed to attract industry investment by delivering a suite of new precompetitive geoscience data in prospective Australian sedimentary basins. Through EFTF, Geoscience Australia has acquired significant amounts of new geomechanical data from underexplored onshore sedimentary basins with identified hydrocarbon prospectivity, from both legacy and newly acquired samples. These data were acquired to build a better understanding of basin sediment rock properties, particularly looking at the reservoir and seal potential of postulated unconventional and conventional targets. Four major datasets are presented herein, representing prospective intervals from the Paleozoic Canning Basin of Western Australia, the Neoproterozoic-Paleozoic Officer Basin of South Australia and Western Australia, the Paleo-Mesoproterozoic South Nicholson region of the Northern Territory and northwest Queensland, and the Paleo-Mesoproterozoic Birrindudu Basin of the Northern Territory and Western Australia. Additionally, the Paleo-Mesoproterozoic McArthur Basin of the Northern Territory is represented by a small number of analyses. Tests include unconfined compressive strength tests, laboratory ultrasonic measurements, single and multi-stage triaxial tests and Brazilian tensile strength tests. These datasets are a precompetitive resource that can facilitate investment decisions in frontier regions, helping to identify elements of conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon systems as well as providing essential data to assess geological storage opportunities. <b>Citation:</b> Bailey Adam, Dewhurst David, Wang Liuqi, Carson Chris, Anderson Jade, Butcher Grace, Henson Paul (2024) Exploring for the Future: new geomechanical data in frontier Australian basins. Australian Energy Producers Journal 64, 155-168. https://doi.org/10.1071/EP23029