An emerging shale gas play in the Northern Territory
R. Johnson A , G. Hokin A , D. Warner A , R. Dawney B , M. Dix C and T. Ruble CA Armour Energy.
B Australasian Mineral Exploration Consultants (AUSMEC).
C Weatherford Laboratories.
The APPEA Journal 52(2) 672-672 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ11086
Published: 2012
Abstract
As attention to unconventional oil and gas resources increases, historical oil and gas flows in shale reservoirs across the world are being given renewed attention. Such is the case of the shaly and carbonate deposits of the McArthur and Nathan groups in the Northern Territory.
The Batten Trough is a Proterozoic depocenter with potential for a shale gas play in the Barney Creek Shale and potential for conventional gas accumulations in the underlying Coxco Dolomite. This Barney Creek Shale gas play is evidenced by a number of mineral exploration drill holes that encountered live oil and gas shows within the McArthur Group. The most prominent was a mineral exploration hole drilled at the Glyde River prospect by Amoco in 1979.
This well reportedly flowed gas and condensates at 140 psi for six months before it was sealed at the surface, which certainly shows permeability values greater than micro-darcies reported for many North American shale plays; thus, an exploration program of this prospective area has been planned by Armour Energy in EP-171 on several targets adjacent to the Emu Fault Zone near both Glyde and Caranbirini, along with other anticline related targets adjacent to the Abner Range. This extended abstract details how the targets were identified, the plan for data acquisition (e.g. seismic, drilling, logging, and testing), and the proposed completion strategy to test this highly prospective target.
Ray Johnson is general manager of exploration and production for Armour Energy, Brisbane. He completed a BA (chemistry) and an MSc (petroleum engineering) and is now a PhD candidate at UQ. He has 31 years of experience in conventional and unconventional hydraulic fracturing design, execution, and evaluation across Australia and North America in roles at service, consulting, and operating companies. He has written several SPE papers and made numerous presentations about hydraulic fracture optimisation. Member: SPE, SPWLA. |
Geoff Hokin is the exploration and operations manager for Armour Energy. He holds qualifications in business management and a diploma in workplace training and assessment. He obtained a master’s degree (geology) in 1984 from the University of Wollongong and a master’s honours degree in 1990. He has a diverse professional career that includes numerous management positions and extensive technical experience in production and exploration geology in coal, CSG, conventional, and shale gas. |
David Warner is a geologist with 38 years of experience in the oil and gas business developing conventional and unconventional prospects. He has a BSc (geology) (Hons) from UNE and an MSc from Imperial College London. Before joining Armour, he was directly involved in the development of Santos’ unconventional gas projects and responsible for presenting the concept of unconventional gas as a resource within the company. Member: AAPG, SPE. |
Rod Dawney is a consulting exploration geologist with 35 years of extensive Australian and international experience in metalliferous and energy commodities, including petroleum. Since 1983, he has operated as an independent consultant, and has developed numerous specialties. Those particularly pertinent to the present study include structural geology, terrain analysis using computer GIS techniques, and geological interpretation of remotely sensed images (including air photo, satellite, and geophysical images)—commonly called photogeology. |
Mike Dix received a BS (geology) from the University of Dayton (USA). He has more than 27 years of professional experience in clastic petrology, reservoir geology, fracture analysis, and elemental geochemistry. Since 1999, he has focused on developing real-time elemental/chemostratigraphic applications to assist drilling operations, primarily geosteering and formation evaluation. He has applied elemental techniques to numerous sandstone, carbonate, and shale reservoirs in North America, South America, West Africa, and the Middle East. His role at Weatherford is to develop laboratory-based elemental applications, and extend those to real-time Wellsite Geoscience services. |
Tim Ruble is a senior geochemist at Weatherford Laboratories, assessing unconventional shale reservoirs. He earned a BS (chemistry) in 1987 from Truman State University and later obtained an MS (1990) and a PhD (1996) in geology from the University of Oklahoma. His experience is broad including positions at CSIRO, Mobil Oil, USGS, and Humble Geochemical Services. He has published articles about lacustrine petroleum systems, oil-bearing fluid inclusions, solid bitumens, biomarker analyses, and hydrocarbon generation kinetics. |
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