Petrophysical interpretation and reservoir characterisation on Proterozoic shales in National Drilling Initiative Carrara 1, Northern Territory
Liuqi Wang A * , Adam H. E. Bailey A , Emmanuelle Grosjean A , Chris Carson A , Lidena K. Carr A , Grace Butcher A , Christopher J. Boreham A , Dave Dewhurst B , Lionel Esteban B , Chris Southby A and Paul A. Henson AA Geoscience Australia, GPO Box 378, Canberra, ACT 2601, Australia.
B CSIRO Energy, Perth, WA 6151, Australia.
The APPEA Journal 63 230-246 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ22049
Submitted: 8 December 2022 Accepted: 1 March 2023 Published: 11 May 2023
© 2023 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of APPEA. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY).
Abstract
The Proterozoic succession in the National Drilling Initiative Carrara 1 drill hole, Northern Territory, is dominated by tight shales, siltstones and calcareous clastic rocks. As part of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future program, this study aimed to improve the Proterozoic shale gas reservoir characterisation by derivation of porosity, permeability and gas content from laboratory testing and machine learning approaches to wireline log interpretation. The Proterozoic Lawn Hill Formation is divided into four chemostratigraphic packages. The middle two packages are further divided into seven internal units according to principal component analysis and self-organising map clustering on well logs and inorganic geochemical properties. Artificial neural networks were then applied to interpret the mineral compositions, porosity and permeability from well logs, density and neutron-density crossplot interpretations. Gas content was estimated from the interpreted porosity, gas saturation, total organic carbon and clay contents. Petrophysical interpretation results are summarised for all chemostratigraphic packages and units. P2 (1126.3–1430.1 m) has the highest potential among the four chemostratigraphic packages. P2U1 (1126.3–1271 m) and P2U3 (1335.5–1430.1 m) units have the most favourable petrophysical properties for organic-rich shales, with average total gas contents of 1.213 and 1.315 cm3/g, geometric mean permeability of 6.6 and 25.31 µD and net shale thickness of 53.5 and 83.3 m, respectively. P3U4 (687.9–697.9 m) has high gas content and permeability, with a net shale thickness of 35.9 m. The tight non-organic-rich siltstone and shale reservoirs in package P1 (below 1430.1 m) have an average gas saturation of 17.4% and a geometric mean permeability of 0.48 µD.
Keywords: artificial neural networks, chemostratigraphy, gas content, log interpretation, machine learning, mineral composition, NDI Carrara 1, permeability, porosity, Proterozoic shale, reservoir characterisation.
Liuqi Wang is a Well Analyst at Geoscience Australia (GA) working in the Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division. He received his PhD in Petroleum Engineering and worked as a Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales before joining GA. Liuqi is a member of PESA and the European Association of Geoscientists and Engineers. |
Adam H. E. Bailey is a Petroleum Geoscientist at GA, with expertise in petroleum geomechanics, structural geology and basin analysis. He graduated with PhD in 2016 from the Australian School of Petroleum at the University of Adelaide. Adam is currently part of the Onshore Energy Systems team at GA, where he currently works on the Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program. |
Emmanuelle Grosjean is an Organic Geochemist at GA working in the Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division. Emmanuelle applies organic geochemistry to assess the hydrocarbon prospectivity of Australia’s offshore and onshore sedimentary basins. Emmanuelle holds a doctorate degree in Organic Chemistry from the University of Strasbourg, France. Before joining GA in 2005, she worked on the Precambrian petroleum systems of the South Oman Salt Basin as a Postdoctoral Associate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. |
Chris Carson has worked in Antarctica, Canadian Arctic, Alaska, New Caledonia and northern and central Australia, specialising in metamorphic petrology, geochronology and structural geology. Joining GA in 2006, he dabbled in Sensitive High Resolution Ion Microprobe geochronology and, in 2017, joined the Onshore Energy program, working in the South Nicholson region of the Northern Territory. |
Lidena K. Carr is a Geoscientist for the Onshore Energy Systems project within the Resources Division at GA. She graduated from the Australian National University (ANU), majoring in Geology and Human Ecology, with a BA/BSc (Hons) in 2004 and began working as a Technical Officer at the Research School of Earth Sciences (ANU). In 2007, she joined GA with the then ACRES (satellite imagery). In 2009, she moved to the then Onshore Energy and Mineral Division to work as a Seismic Interpreter and Basin Analyst. Currently she is the acting Director of the Onshore Energy Systems directorate, working on the EFTF program. She is member of PESA and the Geological Society of Australia. |
Grace Butcher is a Geologist at GA. She graduated with a BSc (Hons) in 2010 from the School of Earth and Environment at the University of Leeds. Working with the Onshore Energy Systems team at GA, Grace is currently working on the flagship EFTF program in Northern Australia, specifically the National Drilling Initiative Carrara 1 drill hole and the newly discovered Carrara Sub-basin. |
Christopher J. Boreham is a Principal Organic Geochemist at GA, working in the Minerals, Energy and Groundwater Division. He obtained a PhD in Chemistry at ANU. Chris applies his skills to understand the evolution of petroleum and abiogenic gas in Australian basins. Chris is a member of PESA and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists. |
Dave Dewhurst is a Chief Research Scientist at CSIRO Energy in Perth. He holds a BSc (Hons) in Geology from the University of Sheffield (UK) and a PhD in Physics from the University of Newcastle Upon Tyne (UK). He previously held post-doctoral positions at the University of Birmingham (UK), the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK), the Institut Français du Pétrole near Paris and the Imperial College, London, before moving to CSIRO in 1998. He works on mechanical and physical properties of rocks for petroleum exploration and development, specialising in overburden and gas shales, as well as reservoir and seal evaluation for geological storage of carbon dioxide (CO2) and other gases. |
Lionel Esteban holds a PhD in Applied Geophysics, Magnetic Environment and Petrophysics from joint French Universities (University Paul Sabatier-Toulouse and University of Strasbourg, EOST and Institut de Physique du Globe, IPG) and the French Nuclear Waste Management (ANDRA). Lionel is currently a Principal Petrophysicist at CSIRO (Perth, Western Australia), a member of the Society of Petrophysicists and Well Log Analysts and the Society of Petroleum Engineers, and an Academic Editor for the journal Geofluids. He develops and tests petrophysical experimental laboratory approaches and integrates them to log analyses to characterise and understand the physical properties and responses of unconventional and conventional reservoirs at different scales, using a wide spectrum of petrophysical tools, including X-ray imaging, electrical, nuclear magnetic resonance, mechanical and core flooding under (or not) high pressure or high temperature. His current research focuses on low permeability reservoirs to understand clay mineral relationships, hydrocarbon storage and sealing capacity; CO2–rock interactions and core flooding in carbonates; and drilling mud effects on rock properties in conventional reservoirs. |
Chris Southby is a Geoscientist in the GA Resources Division, Energy Systems Branch. He completed his Honours at ANU in 2004 on palaeo-climate geochemistry of corals from Papua New Guinea. Since joining GA in 2008, he has contributed to a number of projects, including the National Carbon Mapping and Infrastructure Plan, the Vlaming Sub-basin CO2 Storage Assessment and the Houtman Sub-basin Prospectivity Project. He is now part of the Onshore Energy Systems team at GA, currently working under the EFTF project initiative. |
Paul A. Henson graduated from the University of Tasmania and is currently the Director of the Onshore Energy Systems Section at GA. He has extensive experience in the minerals sector, working on mineral systems in Proterozoic and Archaean terranes. Since 2010, he led the Australian Government's onshore carbon storage program, undertaking deep onshore drilling and seismic acquisition programs in collaboration with the states and industry. In addition, he now manages the EFTF – Energy Program, leading a team of researchers to acquire new pre-competitive geoscientific data to improve our understanding of the oil and gas potential of Australian onshore basins. |
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