teaser:
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.
[...]
