THE YELLOW DRUM FORMATION—A HYDROCARBON RESERVOIR, CANNING BASIN, WESTERN AUSTRALIA

Abstract

The Yellow Drum Formation has an extensive distribution on the Lennard Shelf of the Canning Basin. It straddles the Devonian-Carboniferous boundary and is a peritidal clearwater deposit. The environment of deposition controlled the diagenetic path followed by the sediments. The bulk of the formation was penecontem-poraneously dolomitized to a fine-grained crystalline rock with moderate porosity, with permeability too low to be an effective oil reservoir. However, in some facies the dolomite was coarser grained producing a good reservoir. Tertiary porosity was created by later leaching of remnant calcite, turning a good reservoir into an excellent reservoir.

The environment of deposition is readily identified from examination of the sediments, which can then be located in a depositional model. From this the reservoir potential can be predicted. Conversely, from the identification of the portion of the depositional model in which the sediments were deposited it is possible to predict in what direction better reservoir development exists.