An Integrated Analysis of the Cooper-Eromanga Basin, South Australia: a Search for New Stratigraphic and Structural Prospects

Perez, Roderick ¹; Baruch, Elizabeth ¹; Portas, Romina ¹; Russian, Carlos ¹; Santacruz, Carlos ¹; Slatt, Roger M.^1
1 School of Geology and Geophysics, The University of Oklahoma, Norman, OK.

It is often the case that in new ventures exploration we deal with scarce data in order to come up with a desired result as it is the case of developing a portfolio of prospects. So is the case of this project onto which it has been dedicated a huge amount of work in a limited one month period. This work represents our effort in the world-wide well known Imperial Barrel Competition held each year for the AAPG (American Association of Petroleum Geologists) annual convention. The dataset used was from South Australia consisting of only three wells and three 3D seismic volumes. The goal was to derive new possible prospect locations and future exploration areas. The dataset was provided by AAPG, and is in open file form by Primary Industries and Resources South Australia (PIRSA).

An integration of sequence stratigraphy, basin modeling, petrophysics, seismic interpretation, seismic attributes, volumetric calculation and risk analysis resulted in a series of well proposals that includes not only low risk prospects but also high risk prospects in the portfolio. This work presents both structural and stratigraphic plays that were identified as excellent prospects for exploration in South Australia. All prospects were evaluated for volumetrics using a Monte Carlo simulation. Seven prospects were evaluated for P10, P50 and P90 for Gross rock Volume, Net/Gross, Porosity, Water Saturation, Formation Volumetric Factor, and Recovery Factor.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #90090©2009 AAPG Annual Convention and Exhibition, Denver, Colorado, June 7-10, 2009