offshore beauty!

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New study finds oil and gas bounty off WA coast

A PREVIOUSLY unexplored basin off the coast of Western Australia may soon become the focus of resource developers, after researchers discovered the area likely contains significant deposits of oil and gas.

Geoscience Australia recently completed a 3 year study of the Perth basin as part of the Australian Government's Offshore Energy Security Program, in which researchers found the northern Perth Basin may contain more deposits of oil and gas than previously thought.

Geoscience Australia senior geologist Andrew Jones says research into some of the wells drilled previously in the basin identified good source rock potential in the area.

“The source rocks where the oil and gas is generated were much more widely spread than previously thought. There was a belief that there was only the potential to generate oil and gas onshore and directly adjacent where it is already being produced,” he says.

Researchers utilised several sets of data over the 3 year period, which involved up to 10 Geoscience Australia scientists working collaboratively with partner organisations such as CSIRO.

“Where the oil and gas companies drill, it’s a commercial decision. For us, it is purely about the science. We are able to look at the whole area objectively, where otherwise commercial pressures might preclude researchers going into an area to conduct thorough analyses,” Dr Jones says.

“The main data set that we used was seismic data, using images of the rock strata underneath the sea bed. We interpret that and it gives us an understanding of the shape of the rocks underground and whether or not there are potentially structures that oil and gas may be trapped in.

“We are looking for bumps in the rock where oil and gas might become trapped. We take the seismic data and do some fairly sophisticated modeling to predict the likelihood that oil and gas may still be preserved in the rock structure.

In addition, paleontologists described the age of the rocks, geo-chemists worked in the Geoscience Australia labs, and a comprehensive marine survey was completed to identify natural oil and gas seepage.

“Basins have oil and gas systems in them and almost all of them tend to leak a little. If researchers are able to find oil and gas leakage, they can conclude there is oil and gas in the basin somewhere. Whilst we didn’t find anything conclusive there were a number of indicators suggesting there may be some natural oil and gas seepage happening in the area,” Dr Jones says.

Dr Jones and his colleagues will be presenting details of their work at the 34th International Geological Congress.