A preliminary assessment of regional CO2 storage potential in the onshore northern Perth Basin
Louisa Ellis A , Charmaine Thomas A , Julie Cass A , Arthur Mory A and Deidre Brooks A *A
Louisa Ellis obtained a BSc (Hons) in Geology (University of Western Australia) in 2001. After a stint in mining, she made the switch to the petroleum industry in 2004, commencing work at Woodside, Perth, where she remained for 15 years. Louisa worked within various teams across exploration and development within Woodside, with her most recent role being 3 years spent in petroleum systems modelling. She joined DEMIRS in 2021 in the position of Senior Geologist within the Energy and Geoscience branch, where she is primarily involved in the creation of an atlas of CO2 storage prospectivity within Western Australia. |
Charmaine Thomas is Senior Geoscientist in the Energy Geoscience and Carbon Strategy Group at the Geological Survey of Western Australia. Her main interests are basin analysis and tectonics, and seismic interpretation. She received a B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Western Australia in 2006, before joining Woodside Energy as a graduate Geologist in 2007. In 2012, she completed her M.Sc. thesis on the numerical modelling of rift basin initiation and evolution at the University of Sydney. Charmaine is a member of PESA and GSA. |
Julie Cass is a petrophysicist with over 20 years international experience in the oil and gas industry. She currently works for the Geological Survey and Resource Strategy Division of the Department of Mines, Industry, Regulation and Safety. Before joining the survey Julie worked for Chevron Australia in Perth, Marathon Oil and Helix RDS in the UK, and Santos in Brisbane; moving between petrophysical specialist and multidisciplinary project-based leadership positions. Julie has worked on a diverse range of assets, in many countries, across many depositional settings and fluid types. She has experience using a wide variety of log and core based petrophysical evaluation methodologies to produce reliable static, dynamic and rock physics assessments to develop an understanding of reservoir quality controls and evaluate uncertainty. Julie has a Bachelor of Science (Applied Geology) and a Master’s degree in Engineering Science (Petroleum Engineering) from Curtin University. She is a member of PESA, SPWLA and SPE. |
Arthur Mory has been with the provincial Geological Survey of Western Australia for aeons, but still enjoys his role as a churlish curmudgeon. |
Deidre Brooks has been the Manager Energy Geoscience at the GSWA since 2016. Prior to this Deidre worked for over 35 years as a petroleum geologist in technical and leadership roles at Esso, Santos, BHP Petroleum, Woodside and Origin Energy. The work at GSWA has expanded Deidre’s horizons from focussing on petroleum to new and alternative energy-related geosciences such as natural hydrogen, helium, geothermal and CO2 sequestration. |
Abstract
The Geological Survey of Western Australia (GSWA) is creating a new carbon dioxide (CO2) geological storage atlas for Western Australia. The atlas will incorporate the latest state-wide datasets to provide a regional assessment of the potential for CO2 sequestration across the Perth, Southern Carnarvon, Northern Carnarvon (onshore and State waters), Canning and Officer basins. Multi-1D modelling of subsurface temperature in the northern Perth Basin incorporates newly collated temperature data, updated regional depth maps, and stratigraphic revisions. This modelling captures lateral subsurface temperature variations that are incorporated into isothermal depth and temperature maps identifying reservoir units within the optimum temperature–pressure window for CO2 storage. Isopach maps of associated sealing units indicate where they are of adequate thickness to contain CO2. Modelled present-day temperature maps of seven key reservoir units reveal promising CO2 storage prospectivity, with all postulated reservoir units having significant extents within optimum CO2 storage temperature and pressure ranges. Whereas older reservoir units are prospective for CO2 storage towards the margins of the basin, younger reservoir units in the shallower part of the succession are only prospective in or near the Dandaragan Trough, the deepest part of the basin. The critical upper temperature limit of 31.1°C is shallower in the north and west of the basin, where the modelled geothermal gradient is higher. All state-wide raw and interpreted datasets including temperature and depth maps will be published and available for download on the GSWA Western Australian Petroleum and Geothermal Information Management System website.
Keywords: AI, borehole temperature data, CO2, LAS files, multi-1D temperature modelling, new geoscience data, new interpretations, northern Perth Basin, Python code, regional assessment, regional depth maps, sequestration, storage, stratigraphic revisions.
Louisa Ellis obtained a BSc (Hons) in Geology (University of Western Australia) in 2001. After a stint in mining, she made the switch to the petroleum industry in 2004, commencing work at Woodside, Perth, where she remained for 15 years. Louisa worked within various teams across exploration and development within Woodside, with her most recent role being 3 years spent in petroleum systems modelling. She joined DEMIRS in 2021 in the position of Senior Geologist within the Energy and Geoscience branch, where she is primarily involved in the creation of an atlas of CO2 storage prospectivity within Western Australia. |
Charmaine Thomas is Senior Geoscientist in the Energy Geoscience and Carbon Strategy Group at the Geological Survey of Western Australia. Her main interests are basin analysis and tectonics, and seismic interpretation. She received a B.Sc. (Hons) from the University of Western Australia in 2006, before joining Woodside Energy as a graduate Geologist in 2007. In 2012, she completed her M.Sc. thesis on the numerical modelling of rift basin initiation and evolution at the University of Sydney. Charmaine is a member of PESA and GSA. |
Julie Cass is a petrophysicist with over 20 years international experience in the oil and gas industry. She currently works for the Geological Survey and Resource Strategy Division of the Department of Mines, Industry, Regulation and Safety. Before joining the survey Julie worked for Chevron Australia in Perth, Marathon Oil and Helix RDS in the UK, and Santos in Brisbane; moving between petrophysical specialist and multidisciplinary project-based leadership positions. Julie has worked on a diverse range of assets, in many countries, across many depositional settings and fluid types. She has experience using a wide variety of log and core based petrophysical evaluation methodologies to produce reliable static, dynamic and rock physics assessments to develop an understanding of reservoir quality controls and evaluate uncertainty. Julie has a Bachelor of Science (Applied Geology) and a Master’s degree in Engineering Science (Petroleum Engineering) from Curtin University. She is a member of PESA, SPWLA and SPE. |
Arthur Mory has been with the provincial Geological Survey of Western Australia for aeons, but still enjoys his role as a churlish curmudgeon. |
Deidre Brooks has been the Manager Energy Geoscience at the GSWA since 2016. Prior to this Deidre worked for over 35 years as a petroleum geologist in technical and leadership roles at Esso, Santos, BHP Petroleum, Woodside and Origin Energy. The work at GSWA has expanded Deidre’s horizons from focussing on petroleum to new and alternative energy-related geosciences such as natural hydrogen, helium, geothermal and CO2 sequestration. |
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