There are more than 131 giant and super-giant oil and gas fields with Palaeozoic source and reservoir that are similar to the Canning Basin. These include Palaeozoic basins of North America, North Africa, and the North Caspian Basin of Kazakhstan and Russia.The productivity of these Palaeozoic petroleum systems depends on timing of generation and preservation of charge. Thick Ordovician, Permian, and Triassic evaporite deposits played a very important role in creating and preserving the North American, north Caspian, and north African giant oil and gas fields, respectively.The Mesozoic–Tertiary charged Palaeozoic systems are typically more productive than the Palaeozoic charged systems as exemplified by the north African basins.The Ordovician sourced and reservoired giant oil fields of the North American Mid-Continent are also highly productive. Within the Canning Basin, Ordovician sourced oil has been recovered on the Barbwire Terrace (in Dodonea–1, Percival–1 and Solanum–1) on the Dampier Terrace (in Edgar Range–1 and Pictor–1) and along the Admiral Bay Fault Zone (in Cudalgarra–1, Great Sandy–1, and Leo–1).The Canning Basin may be the least explored of the known Palaeozoic basins with proven petroleum systems. The Palaeozoic basins of North America are the most explored with 500-wells/10,000 km2 compared to the Canning Basin with only 4-wells/10,000 km2.The presence of five oil fields, numerous oil and gas shows and the well density in the Canning Basin (200 wells in 530,000 km2) suggests that further exploration is warranted. Critical analysis of the distribution of source rock, reservoir, seal, timing of generation versus trap formation and post accumulation modification for each tectonic unit of the Canning Basin is required.
The Officer Basin in Western Australia contains a variety of hydrocarbon plays associated with compressional, halokinetic, unconformity and stratigraphic traps. Five distinct structural zones have been defined in the basin—a northeastern Marginal Overthrusted Zone, a northeastern Salt-ruptured Zone, a central Thrusted Zone, a Western Platform and a complex salt-dominated Minibasins Zone. These zones, together with salt-associated and sub-salt structure, are well delineated on about 2,900 km of reprocessed 1980s vintage seismic data, now publicly released.Neoproterozoic rocks are marginally to fully mature for oil generation on the Western Platform and immature to overmature for different levels of the succession in the Salt-ruptured and Thrusted zones. Geochemical modelling indicates that the main phases of oil generation vary from different stratigraphic intervals and different parts of the Neoproterozoic basin with peaks during the latest Neoproterozoic, Cambrian, and Permian–Triassic. A variety of hydrocarbon shows have been recorded in each of the structural zones. The most recent, a gas show recorded in the stratigraphic well Vines–1 indicates the presence of potentially effective petroleum systems in the unexplored Waigen area of the Marginal Overthrusted Zone.A wide variety of trap styles have been identified, associated with normal faults, thrust faults, thrust ramp folds, compressive folds, fault tip folds, sub-salt plays, unconformity truncations, pinchouts, lateral facies changes, erosive channels and valleys, fractured carbonates and halokinetic traps. Most of these trap styles are poorly tested or untested.
The sedimentology, palaeontology and geochemistry of Neoproterozoic, organic-rich, clastic and related carbonate deposits in Western Australia provide new insights into the first-order depositional controls on hydrocarbon source rocks in the Neoproterozoic. Organic facies are correlated with depositional facies, revealing the impact of organic productivity and transport of organic rich sediments on the accumulation of organic matter in different depositional environments. Sedimentation is largely limited to ramp, platform, shoal, lagoon and sabkha environments.Growth of benthic organisms in the photic zone was the primary process controlling the production of organic matter in the ramp-shoreline system of the Kanpa Formation. Storms and floods were the primary mechanism for moving organic rich sediments into dysoxic and anoxic depositional environments. Variations in organic facies are indicated by: 1) changes in the palynomorph assemblages, particularly the increase in acritarchs within shallow-water ramp facies and cyanobacterial filaments in quiet-water sediments; 2) organic-rich laminae, containing abundant cyanobacterial filaments and mat material; and 3) the oxidation state of preserved organic remains.Periods of high organic growth rates or periods of mass mortality may have led to the development of an anoxic zone at the water-sediment interface. In the shoal and lagoonal settings, higher rates of clastic sediment dilution combined with oxygenated conditions resulted in lower TOC and hydrogen depleted organic facies.Condensed sections overlying stromatolitic dolomites represent the most effective organic facies of all of the potential source laminae sampled in Empress–IA. Most of the Officer Basin succession is currently within the oil-generating window and hydrocarbon shows encourage further exploration.
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