500klm, 150m and 9.5% organics means what?, page-17

The HVS is the source rock for Palm Valley and Mereenie and also Surprise. So it definitely has potential.

But it's not an ideal shale target. I think it was rayz who posted a while ago some info about various shale targets in the central Australian basins including the Georgina and Amadeus. The HVS was about average - certainly the hot shale in the Georgina whose name I forget ATM was much better.

The HVS certainly isn't 150m thick across the whole basin. I guess it is in some areas. TOC of 9.5% also sounds way too high - in fact you don't want TOC that high because it makes it harder to frac. But I'm pretty sure the average TOC of the HVS is nowhere near that high, it's more like 1-3%. I can't back that up though - we need rayz's data again.

The final point is that it won't be prospective across the entire basin either. Depth and thermal maturity will only be suitable in a certain area.

You have to be a bit careful in reading too much into shale - there's this popular perception that you just find any shale with a suitable TOC and frac it and presto, you have economic shale.

In reality it actually only works economically when a very specific set of factors are present. I don't personally believe the HVS is an immediately prospective formation for O&G production because it's just too remote. Even the US shales struggle outside the sweet spots, and they are ideally located close to markets and infrastructure.

The first place shale will happen in Australia will be the Cooper, and even then it will be the REM- and Patchawarra-type plays which are more combined shale/tight sand plays. Tight sands might have permeabilities of 0.1 mD or so, but shales are more like 0.001 mD. You really need to have natural fractures to make it work.

Just my thoughts. I'm actually starting to get into shale and tight sands for work so give me a few months and hopefully I'll have a better idea. :)