The Australian Government recognises the importance of providing quality geoscientific information to assist in exploration of these resources.
On 14 August 2006 the Australian Government announced new program funding of A$134 million for Geoscience Australia as part of the Government's new energy initiative. Of this, A$76.4 million will be used to ensure that the global exploration industry has continued access to further up-to-date pre-competitive data over Australia's vast offshore areas. The funding covers the period 2006-2011 and is for an expanded program to focus on new frontier offshore areas prioritised in consultation with the industry. An additional A$59 million over five years has been allocated to identify potential onshore energy sources such as petroleum and geothermal energy.
This new funding builds on the A$61 million previously provided by the Government to Geoscience Australia for pre-competitive data acquisition and remastering of existing seismic data for use in acreage release areas. Public access to exploration and production data in Australia includes digital seismic tapes, well reports and core and cuttings samples from wells. These public data sets are available at the cost of transfer, after a relative brief confidentiality period.
Borrowing of data is now cheap, quick and easy. 2007 has continued to see significant increases in borrowings of seismic data from the Geoscience Australia archive. In 2006, 33 terabytes of data were loaned, and by June 2007 more than 70 terabytes were accessed including work station ready data packages for the 2007 release areas in Kingdom, Landmark and Geoquest formats.
The Australian Government funding has also enabled Geoscience Australia to undertake an integrated program of seismic acquisition, geological sampling and oil-seep detection surveys over remote and untested frontier basins. This petroleum initiative has increased understanding of these areas and provided pre-competitive data and information to reduce geological uncertainties in evaluation of petroleum prospectivity. An outcome of this program has been the uptake of new exploration permits in the frontier areas of the Bremer Sub-basin in the western Great Australian Bight and the northern Arafura Basin, offshore northern Australia.
Details of the new pre-competitive geological and geophysical data collection work programs are available from the Geoscience Australia website, www.ga.gov.au/about/corporate/#program. Data sets are available for the Arafura Basin and the Central North West Shelf of Northern Australia; the Mentelle, Perth, and Bremer basins of Western Australia; and the Faust, Capel and Fairways Basins of the Tasman Sea, including 5,900 km of new 2D seismic data collected in the collected with an 8 km cable.
The program of new data acquisition and basin analysis is continuing with renewed and increased funding for 2007-11. Geoscience Australia's work program in under-explored offshore areas will focus on the southwest margin, including the Mentelle, Vlaming and north Perth Basins, a synthesis of current knowledge available for the southern margin (from the Naturaliste Plateau in the west to Sorell Basin in the east) and the remote eastern frontiers (Capel, Faust, Gower, Moore and Monawai basins in the Tasman Sea).
Two types of marine survey will take place. Reconnaissance surveys will involve the collection of potential field data (gravity and magnetics) as well as multibeam and sub-bottom profiler data to map the sea floor. Industry standard 2D seismic surveys will involve the collection of geophysical data to image basin shape and sediment architecture beneath the sea floor.