ACCESS TO AUSTRALIAN EXPLORATION AND PRODUCTION DATA: A CRITICAL FACTOR IN ATTRACTING INVESTMENT

Abstract

During the past 10 years, Australia has maintained 65– 85% self-sufficiency in oil and better than 100% sufficiency in gas. This has generated significant societal benefits in terms of employment, balance of payments, and revenue. The decline of the super-giant Gippsland fields, discovery of smaller oil pools on the North West Shelf, and the increasing reliance on condensate to sustain our liquids supply, however, sharpens the focus on Australia’s need to increase exploration and discover more oil. Australia is competing in the global market place for exploration funds, but as it is relatively underexplored there is a need to simulate interest through access to pre-competitive data and information. Public access to exploration and production data is a key plank in Australian promotion of petroleum exploration acreage. Access results from legislation that initially subsidised exploration in return for lodgement and public availability of exploration and production (E&P) data. Today publicly available E&P data ranges from digital seismic tapes, to core and cuttings samples from wells, and access to relational databases, including organic geochemistry, biostratigraphy, and reservoir and shows information. Seismic information is being progressively consolidated to high density media. Under the Commonwealth Government’s Spatial Information and Data Access Policy, announced in 2001, company data are publicly available at the cost of transfer, after a relatively brief confidentiality period. In addition, pre-competitive regional studies relating to petroleum prospectivity, undertaken by Government, and databases and spatial information are free over the Internet, further reducing the cost of exploration. In cooperation with the Australian States and the Northern Territory, we are working towards jointly presenting Australian opportunities through the Geoscience Portal (http:// www.geoscience.gov.au) and a virtual one-stop data repository. The challenge now is to translate data availability to increased exploration uptake, through client information, and through ever-improving on-line access.