Geoscience Australia recently commenced work on a multi-year study of Australian petroleum source rocks to improve our understanding of the petroleum resource potential of Australia's sedimentary basins. The Permian source rocks of the Cooper Basin are the first to be characterised for this project. Quantifying the spatial distribution and petroleum generation potential of these source rocks is critical for understanding both the conventional and unconventional hydrocarbon prospectivity of the basin.
The Cooper Basin is an upper Carboniferous-Middle Triassic intracratonic basin in northeastern South Australia and southwestern Queensland (Gravestock et al., 1998; Draper, 2002; McKellar, 2013; Carr et al., 2015; Hall et al., 2015a). The basin is Australia's premier onshore hydrocarbon producing province and is nationally significant in providing gas to the eastern Australian gas market. The basin also hosts a range of unconventional gas play types within the Permian Gidgealpa Group, including basin-centred gas and tight gas accumulations, deep dry coal gas associated with the Patchawarra and Toolachee formations, the Murteree and Roseneath shale gas plays and deep coal seam gas in the Weena Trough (e.g. Goldstein et al., 2012; Menpes et al., 2013; Greenstreet, 2015). The principal source rocks for these plays are the Permian coals and coaly shales of the Gidgealpa Group (Boreham & Hill, 1998; Deighton et al., 2003; Hall et al., 2016a). Mapping the petroleum generation potential of these source rocks is critical for understanding the hydrocarbon prospectivity of the basin contains reviews the distribution, type, quality, maturity and generation potential of the Cooper Basin source rocks.
Geoscience Australia, in conjunction with the Department of State Development, South Australia and the Geological Survey of Queensland, have recently released a series of studies reviewing the distribution, type, quality, maturity and generation potential of the Cooper Basin source rocks.
- A 3D basin model, characterising regional basin architecture, was constructed through the integration of existing horizons with formation tops and seismic interpretations (Hall et al., 2015a; Hall et al., 2016d).
- Source rock distribution, amount and quality were reviewed through the analysis of log data and source rock geochemical data (including data acquired from new sampling), characterising source rocks across the whole basin (Hall et al., 2016a; Hall et al., 2016e).
- Petroleum systems models, incorporating new Cooper Basin kinetics (Mahlstedt et al., 2015), highlight the variability in burial, thermal and hydrocarbon generation histories for each source rock across the basin (Hall et al., 2016b in prep; Hall et al., 2016f).
This GIS contains all data associated with the above reports and accompanying data packages, providing important insights into the hydrocarbon prospectivity of the basin (Hall et al., 2015b; Kuske et al., 2015). The broad extent of the Cooper Basin's Permian source kitchen and its large total generation potential, highlights the basin's significance as a world class hydrocarbon province. The systematic workflow applied here demonstrates the importance of integrated geochemical and petroleum systems modelling studies as a predictive tool for understanding the petroleum resource potential of Australia's sedimentary basins.
