Emerging unconventional shale plays in Western Australia

Abstract

Production of shale gas in the US has changed its position from a gas importer to a potential gas exporter. This has stimulated exploration for shale-gas resources in WA. The search started with Woodada Deep–1 (2010) and Arrowsmith–2 (2011) in the Perth Basin to evaluate the shale-gas potential of the Permian Carynginia Formation and the Triassic Kockatea Shale, and Nicolay–1 (2011) in the Canning Basin to evaluate the shale-gas potential of the Ordovician Goldwyer Formation. Estimated total shale-gas potential for these formations is about 288 trillion cubic feet (Tcf). Other petroleum source rocks include the Devonian Gogo and Lower Carboniferous Laurel formations of the Canning Basin, the Lower Permian Wooramel and Byro groups of the onshore Carnarvon Basin, and the Neoproterozoic shales of the Officer Basin. The Canning and Perth basins are producing petroleum, whereas the onshore Carnarvon and Officer basins are not producing, but they have indications for petroleum source rocks, generation, and migration from geochemistry data. Exploration is at a very early stage, and more work is needed to estimate the shale-gas potential of all source rocks and to verify estimated resources.

Exploration for shale gas in WA will benefit from new drilling and production techniques and technologies developed during the past 15 years in the US, where more than 102,000 successful gas production wells have been drilled. WA shale-gas plays are stratigraphically and geochemically comparable to producing plays in the Upper Ordovician Utica Shale, Middle Devonian Marcellus Shale and Upper Devonian Bakken Formation, Upper Mississippian Barnett Shale, Upper Jurassic Haynesville-Bossier formations, and Upper Cretaceous Eagle Ford Shale of the US. WA is vastly under-explored and emerging self-sourcing shale plays have revived onshore exploration in the Canning, Carnarvon, and Perth basins.