Rock properties and in-situ stress state of the Egilabria Prospect, Lawn Hill Platform, Queensland
Adam H. E. Bailey A B , Liuqi Wang A , Lisa Hall A and Paul Henson AA Geoscience Australia, 101 Jerrabomberra Avenue, Symonston ACT 2609.
B Corresponding author. Email: adam.bailey@ga.gov.au
The APPEA Journal 59(1) 383-393 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ18260
Submitted: 21 December 2018 Accepted: 5 March 2019 Published: 17 June 2019
Abstract
The Energy component of Geoscience Australia’s Exploring for the Future (EFTF) program is aimed at improving our understanding of the petroleum resource potential of northern Australia, in partnership with the state and territory geological surveys. The sediments of the Mesoproterozoic South Nicholson Basin and the underlying Paleoproterozoic Isa Superbasin in the Northern Territory and Queensland are amongst the primary targets of the EFTF Energy program, as they are known to contain organic-rich sedimentary units with the potential to host unconventional gas plays, although their subsurface extent under the cover of the Georgina Basin is presently unknown. In order to economically produce from unconventional reservoirs, the petrophysical rock properties and in-situ stresses must be conducive to the creation of secondary permeability networks that connect a wellbore to as large a reservoir volume as possible. This study utilises data from the recently drilled Armour Energy wells Egilabria 2, Egilabria 2-DW1, and Egilabria 4 to constrain rock properties and in-situ stresses for the Isa Superbasin sequence where intersected on the Lawn Hill Platform of north-west Queensland. These results have implications for petroleum prospectivity in an area with proven gas potential, which are discussed here in the context of the rock properties and in-situ stresses desired for a viable shale gas play. In addition, these results are relevant to potential future exploration across the broader Isa Superbasin sequence.
Keywords: Australian Stress Map, Exploring for the Future, EFTF, horizontal stress, image logs, Isa Superbasin, mechanical earth models, northern Australia, north-west Queensland, present-day stress, shale gas, stress magnitude, stress orientations, vertical stress.
Adam Bailey is a Petroleum Geoscientist at Geoscience Australia, with expertise in petroleum geomechanics, structural geology and basin analysis. He graduated with a BSc (Hons) in 2012 and a PhD in 2016 from the University of Adelaide. Working with the Onshore Energy Systems team at Geoscience Australia, Adam is currently working on the flagship EFTF program in northern Australia. |
Liuqi Wang is a reservoir modeller at Geoscience Australia. He received his Bachelor and Master degrees in petroleum geology in 1987 and 1990 respectively and a PhD in petroleum engineering in 2000. He started his career as an academic teacher on sedimentology and petroleum geology at the University of Petroleum, China, from 1990 to 1996. He worked at Geo Visual Systems Australia P/L as a Principal Geologist/Research Scientist from 2000 to 2003. Afterwards, he was a Research Fellow at the University of New South Wales. He joined Geoscience Australia as a senior petroleum geologist/engineer in 2008. His research interest is mainly on the integrated reservoir study for both conventional and unconventional resources, including reservoir geology/geophysics, formation evaluation, modelling with geostatistics and artificial intelligence, dynamic reservoir simulation, etc. |
Lisa Hall is a Senior Research Scientist at Geoscience Australia, within the Energy Systems Group of Resources Division. Her current research is focused on hydrocarbon prospectivity assessments and petroleum systems modelling in a variety of Australian basins. Lisa holds an MSc in Geology and Geophysics from Cambridge University (1999) and a DPhil in structural geology and neotectonics from Oxford University (2003). Lisa is a member of PESA. |
Paul A. Henson graduated from the University of Tasmania and is currently managing the onshore Energy Systems Section at Geoscience Australia. He has extensive experience in the minerals sector working on mineral systems in Proterozoic and Archaean terranes. Since 2010, he has led the Australian Governments’ 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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