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Monday, 01 December, 2008, 22:50 GMT | more >>

APPEA eyes new frontiers



By Upstream staff 

The Australian Petroleum & Production Exploration Association (APPEA) believes that just one-quarter of Australia's oil and gas reserves have been tapped, adding in a report that it believes vast resources lie undiscovered in the country's sedimentary basins.

The report's author, geoscientist Trevor Powell, told Fairfax Newspapers: "At present, just 17% of Australia's offshore sedimentary basins and 26% of potentially prospective onshore basins are covered by petroleum permits.

"There are more than 50 sedimentary basins in Australia, of which 12 are currently producing oil or gas and four have reserves deemed non-commercial."

Powell said the most likely oil-rich areas included the Arafura Sea in northern Australia, the remote eastern frontier regions, including the Faust, Capel and Fairway basins of the Lord Howe Rise and the continental shelf area south of Tasmania, the South Tasman Rise.

Onshore, they include the lower Paleozoic basins of central Australia such as the Canning, Georgina, Warburton and Darling basins - which have geological similarities to oil-rich basins in North America - and the Gunnedah, Pedirka and Simpson basins.

Powell added: "Given the maturity of Australia's oil producing areas, only the discovery of a substantial new oil province can arrest the decline in reserves and production."


Monday, 25 February, 2008, 09:02 GMT  | last updated: Monday, 25 February, 2008, 09:05 GMT

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