Australia only 1/4 explored, says industry report

Oil-Finder · **Posted:** Sat Feb 23, 2008 8:33 pm

Quote:

Search on for new oil fields
Jason Koutsoukis
February 24, 2008

MASSIVE oil and gas reserves lie undiscovered across Australia's vast sedimentary basins, the country's peak oil exploration body says.

A new report by the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association has concluded that only a quarter of Australia's oil and gas reserves have been explored.

[...]

"At present, just 17 per cent of Australia's offshore sedimentary basins and 26 per cent of potentially prospective onshore basins are covered by petroleum permits," Dr Powell said.

"There are more than 50 sedimentary basins in Australia, of which 12 are currently producing oil or gas and four have reserves deemed non- commercial."

[...]

"Given the maturity of Australia's oil producing areas, only the discovery of a substantial new oil province can arrest the decline in reserves and production," he said.

Dr Powell said the most likely oil rich areas included the Arafura Sea in northern Australia, the remote eastern frontier regions such as the Faust, Capel and Fairway basins of the Lord Howe Rise and the continental shelf area south of Tasmania, the South Tasman Rise.

Onshore, they include the lower Paleozoic basins of central Australia such as the Canning, Georgina, Warburton and Darling basins - which have geological similarities to oil-rich basins in North America - and the Gunnedah, Pedirka and Simpson basins.

[...]

Oil-Finder · **Posted:** Sat Feb 23, 2008 9:42 pm

In case anyone's interested, from the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association.

All are PDF files.

News release

Technical report

Executive summary

auscanman · **Posted:** Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:11 pm

If this is the case then why would oil companies wait until so long after Australia's peak to explore these regions? I bet a lot of the regions actually have been explored to a certain extent, and that there wasn't more extensive exporation because no discoveries were made.

Oil-Finder, based on this article you must believe that Australia will again manage to ramp up production and exceed the peak it reach back about 6 years ago... I'd be willing to wager you a huge sum that Australia is past its peak.

Oil-Finder · **Posted:** Sat Feb 23, 2008 10:34 pm

^
Read the technical article, the author goes into great detail as to which sedimentary basins have been explored, and which ones have little known about them at all. He also does a pretty long explanation in a couple areas describing how some basins which seemed to have good potential turned out to be duds, and other ones which were overlooked at first turned out to be good prospects.

I have no idea if any of these potential prospects could revive Australian oil production. They might all turn out to be duds. But since there are several potential prospects about which little is known, maybe one or more of these could turn out to be big producers.

OilFinder2 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 07, 2008 2:18 pm

Looks like the Aussies are starting to open up some of these unexplored/underexplored areas:

--> LINK <--

Quote:

The Federal Government invited bids for 35 oil and gas exploration permits in five petroleum basins off the northwest and southwest coasts as it seeks to address a rising deficit in crude-oil supply.

The auction includes seven licenses in regions designated as frontier areas where exploration attracts a tax incentive because of the higher risk, Resources and Energy Minister Martin Ferguson said today in a statement released at the Australian Petroleum Production & Exploration Association conference in Perth.

[...]

The permits in the 2008 auction are located in the Bonaparte, Browse and Carnarvon Basins off the northwest coast and in the Perth Basin off the southwest. Bids for 17 of the permits close on October 9, with the remaining 18 areas closing on April 9, 2009.

[...]

Separately, the South Australian government invited bids for three new onshore oil and gas exploration permits in the Otway Basin.

''Otway Basin is regarded as the second-most prospective basin in South Australia after the Cooper Basin, Australia's largest onshore oil and gas producer,'' Paul Holloway, South Australia's minister for mineral resources development, said in a statement distributed at the conference.

OilFinder2 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 21, 2008 3:35 pm

And now, all of a sudden, Aussies have more territory on which to explore for oil than they did just yesterday!

--> LINK <--

Quote:

In a landmark judgement by a United Nations commission, Australia expanded its borders by almost 35%, or 2.5 million square kilometres, including a seabed thought to harbour fossil fuels and minerals.

"I am pleased to announce that Australia, the largest island in the world, has just been dramatically increased in size," Resources Minister Martin Ferguson said yesterday.

EDIT: Here's a map showing where the territorial expansions occurred. They're the purple areas.
MAP

Twilight · **Joined:** Fri Mar 02, 2007 1:00 am **Posts:** 3062

Fantastic. It is 11:58 in Australia.

montysano · **Joined:** Mon Jan 21, 2008 1:00 am **Posts:** 1

Quote:

MASSIVE oil and gas reserves lie undiscovered across Australia's vast sedimentary basins, the country's peak oil exploration body says

The problem with statements like this is: what is meant by "massive"?

During the ANWR discussion, we were told that there were 8-15 billion barrels of recoverable oil. Sounds like a lot until you do the math. Take a middle amount of 12B barrels. The USA currently imports about 14M barrels per day. So ANWR is 2.35 years free from imported oil, assuming all other factors remain the same.

Denial is a powerful thing.

OilFinder2 · **Posted:** Mon Apr 21, 2008 8:38 pm

^
Well, that depends on exactly what "massive" turns out to be, of course.

yesplease · **Joined:** Tue Oct 03, 2006 12:00 am **Posts:** 3655

montysano wrote:

So ANWR is 2.35 years free from imported oil, assuming all other factors remain the same.

That would be a stretch in the face of significant cuts in consumption the last time oil was as high as it is now, with what looks to be a similar pattern this time around.

OilFinder2 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 6:00 pm

Looks like there's good prospects beneath Tasmania, too.

--> LINK <--

Quote:

[...]

Empire Energy Corporation International said that a recently updated analysis of seismic and geophysical data gathered last year by Solo Geophysics (gravity), Terrex Seismic and Empire's wholly owned subsidiary, Great South Land Minerals Ltd. (GSLM), indicates that Empire's Tasmania Basin wells may have significantly higher commercial value than previously announced.

According to the ongoing Monte Carlo modeling of the growing volume of data on part of the Tasmanian basin, Empire's Bellevue and Interlaken well sites may have undiscovered prospective petroleum resources (P50) of 665 million barrels, an estimate four to ten times the initial estimates of prospective petroleum resources for these wells announced in a May 6 research report published by Beacon Equity Research.

Monte Carlo modeling of the Bellevue structure alone suggests the well could contain between 283 million barrels (P90) and 1.26 billion barrels (P10) of undiscovered prospective petroleum resources.

Empire's first 14 wells may hold undiscovered prospective petroleum resources of between 535 million barrels (P90) and 2.29 billion barrels (P10) of undiscovered petroleum resources, according to the modeling.

[...]

I'll be sure to keep y'all updated when they drill.

joewp · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 8:36 pm

You remind me of the knife I use to scrape the last bit out of the peanut butter jar.

You realize that's what you're doing, right?

OilFinder2 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 9:07 pm

joewp wrote:

You remind me of the knife I use to scrape the last bit out of the peanut butter jar.

You realize that's what you're doing, right?

How do you know? What if they find another Ghawar somewhere in one of these unexplored basins?

OilFinder2 · **Posted:** Tue Jun 10, 2008 9:29 pm

Drifter wrote:

'Could'.. 'would'.. 'may'.. 'prospective'... yawn. :roll:

Typical Peaker wrote:

Oil production could peak soon, or maybe it has already peaked. Nuclear energy might never scale up, solar power could have difficulty replacing fossil fuels and tar sands might never produce lots of oil.

Another hypocritical peaker accusing me of posting projections when that is all they do themselves.

Australia only 1/4 explored, says industry report

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