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RESEARCH ARTICLE (Non peer reviewed)
Contents Vol 51 (Conference Proceedings)

Hydrocarbon charge in the onshore Canning Basin: insights from quantitative fluorescence and fluid inclusion investigations*

K. Liu A , A. Ghori B , R. Kempton A , P. Eadington A , S. Fenton C and D. Mills A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A CSIRO.

B Western Australia Dept of Mines and Petroleum.

C Golder Associates Pty Ltd.

The APPEA Journal 51(2) 706-706 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ10086
Published: 2011

Abstract

The vast and mostly onshore Canning Basin—with an area of approximately 595,000 m2—is the least explored onshore sedimentary basin in Australia. As part of the petroleum system assessment carried out by WA DMP, more than 160 samples were investigated from eight wells in the onshore Canning Basin—they are:

  1. Acacia-1

  2. Dodonea-1

  3. Dodonea-2

  4. Lake Hevern-1

  5. Looma-1

  6. White Hill-1

  7. Wilson Cliffs-1

  8. Yulleroo-1.

Fluid inclusion and quantitative fluorescence techniques developed by CSIRO were used, including:

  1. The grains containing oil inclusions (GOITM) technique;

  2. The quantitative grain fluorescence (QGF) technique;

  3. QGF on extracts (QGF-E); and,

  4. the total scanning fluorescence (TSF) technique.

The results reveal a widespread occurrence of hydrocarbon shows in the reservoir intervals investigated—7–8 wells showed evidence of oil migration and/or accumulations often occurring at multiple depth intervals. In White Hill-1, elevated QGF and QGF-E responses were recorded in the sandy units in a depth interval of more than 500 m in the Fairfield Group. A residual or palaeo oil column of >20 m gross height at 1,655 m was apparent from the QGF and QGF-E depth profiles—and GOI and TSF data. Oil inclusions from the Fairfield Group in White Hill-1 show spectral signature typical of thermally mature and light-medium API gravity. The TSF results also indicate the presence of some condensate species, as well as relatively heavy and possibly biodegraded oils.

The new fluid inclusion and fluorescence data provide direct evidence of an active petroleum system in the Canning Basin at multiple reservoir intervals, which may be of local significant quantity.

Keyu Liu is a principal research scientist and research team leader of the Fluid History Analysis group at CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering in Perth. His principal research areas are clastic sedimentology, hydrocarbon migration and charge history of petroleum reservoirs and laboratory experiments on enhanced oil recovery. Keyu obtained a BSc from China Ocean University, an MSc from the University of Sydney, and a PhD from the Australian National University. Member: AAPG, SPE, AGU, IAS, PESA.

Ameed Ghori has been a senior geologist at the GSWA since 1994 and specialises in petroleum and geothermal systems.

He received a BSc (Hons) in 1967 and an MSc (1968) in geology at the University of Karachi; he also holds a PGradDip (1991) and an MSc (1994) in petroleum geology at Curtin University, Perth.

He worked as specialist/consultant geologist in Uganda at the Petroleum Exploration and Production Department, in Australia at Lasmo Oil; SAGASCO Resources; Discovery Petroleum; and Petrochemex, in Libya at Arabian Gulf Oil Company, and in Pakistan at Oil and Gas Development Corporation.

Member: AAPG, PESA, FESAus and Pakistani Society of Petroleum Geoscientists.

Richard Kempton obtained a BSc (Hons) in geology from the University of Melbourne (1992) and a PhD in geology from UWA (2000).

Richard is a research scientist with the Fluid History Analysis group at CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering in Perth, with 10 years of experience of charge history reconstruction in Australasian basins using fluid inclusions.

Richard has worked as an exploration geologist for Queensland Gas Company and gold exploration companies in WA. Member: PESA, GSA.

Peter Eadington is a principal research scientist and group leader of Geofluid Sciences at CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering in Perth. He has developed new technologies that use fluid inclusion and related techniques for evaluation of exploratory wells to investigate oil migration and accumulation.

He engages with industry to conduct investigations in a range of basin styles and reservoir types internationally and in Australia. He is also part of a team developing nanochemical sensors for hydrocarbons.

He worked in minerals divisions in CSIRO, BHP and Geophysical Service International. He has a PhD from Newcastle University, a DipBusAdmin from Macquarie University and was the recipient of the 2007 Gibb Maitland Medal. Member: PESA, FESAus, AAPG and GSA.

Stephen Fenton is an environmental scientist at Golder Associates Pty Ltd with four years’ experience in the investigation and remediation of contaminated sites, baseline environmental studies and acid sulfate soil assessments.

Stephen has a BSc (Hons)s in chemistry and is now completing a master’s degree in hydrogeology. Prior to working as an environmental scientist, Stephen worked for three years as a project scientist at CSIRO Petroleum where he was involved in the research and development of fluorescence spectroscopy techniques used to reduce exploration risk and assess the fill history of reservoirs.

David Mills is a research project scientist at CSIRO Earth Science and Resource Engineering. He obtained a BSc degree in Physics from the University of Newcastle, (2001) and joined the Fluid History Analysis group at CSIRO in 2007 working on the quantitative grain fluorescence (QGF) project. He is presently undertaking an undergraduate course in geoscience at Curtin University.

References

Barwise, T., and Hay, S., 1996—Predicting oil properties from core fluorescence. In: Schumacher, D., and Abrams, M.A. (eds.) Hydrocarbon migration and its near surface expression. Tulsa, OK, USA: American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

D’Ercole, C., Gibbsons, L., and Ghori, K.A.R., 2003—Prospects and leads, central Canning Basin, Western Australia, 2003. GSWA Record 2003/14. Perth, WA: GSWA.

Eadington, P.J., Lisk, M., and Krieger, F.W., 1996—Identifying oil well sites. US Patent No. 5,543,616.

Ghori, K.A.R., and Haines, P.W., 2006—Petroleum geochemistry of the canning Basin, Western Australia: basic analytical data 2004–05. GSWA Record 2006/7. Perth, WA: GSWA.

Liu, K., and Eadington, P. (2005). Quantitative fluorescence techniques for detecting residual oils and reconstructing hydrocarbon charge history. Organic Geochemistry 36, 1023–36.

Liu, K., Fenton, S., Bastow, T., Van Aarssen, B., and Eadington, P. (2005). Geochemical evidence of multiple hydrocarbon charge and long distance oil migration in the Vulcan Sub-basin, Timor Sea. APPEA Journal 45, 1–18.

Liu, K., Middleton, H., Eadington, P., Cable, T., and Fenton, S. (2007). Application of quantitative grain fluorescence techniques in investigating hydrocarbon charge history in some major petroleum producing basins in Australia and Papua New Guinea. Journal of Petroleum Science and Engineering 57, 139–51.