Government Geoscience Initiatives
The Australian Government recognises the importance of providing quality geoscientific information to assist in exploration of these resources.
On 14 August 2006 the Australian Prime Minister 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 next five years and is for an expanded program to focus on new frontier offshore areas to be chosen 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. 2006 has seen a significant increase in borrowings of seismic data from the Geoscience Australia archive. In 2006 over 900 seismic surveys and 800 well reports were accessed between May and September compared to the same period in 2005 when around 300 surveys and 150 well reports were accessed.
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 new petroleum initiative will increase understanding of these areas and provide pre-competitive data and information to reduce geological uncertainties in evaluation of petroleum prospectivity.
Details of the new pre-competitive geological and geophysical data collection work programs are available from the Geoscience Australia website. Data sets are available for the Arafura Basin and the Central North West Shelf of Northern Australia; the Vlaming, Mentelle and Bremer basins of Western Australia; the Eastern Bight Basin of South Australia; and the Faust, Capel and Fairways Basins of the Tasman Sea.
New hydrocarbon detection techniques have also been of great interest to the petroleum industry. The new Geoscience Australia Seeps and Signatures Project will prove up scientific techniques for detection of hydrocarbons in remote basin areas. In 2004, an oil-seeps detection survey was conducted over the Yampi Shelf, a known seepage area. This survey developed improved methods for the detection and sampling of hydrocarbon seepage and confirmed that sites of active natural hydrocarbon seepage could be detected and sampled, based on pre-existing data sets and those collected during the survey.
These techniques were later successfully applied during a marine survey in the Arafura Sea for natural hydrocarbon seepage in April-May 2005 and in the Central North West Shelf in June 2006. Results from both these surveys have been incorporated with geological studies of these regions by Geoscience Australia. The outputs of these studies are directly relevant to the 2007 acreage release areas in these two regions and are available from the Geoscience Australia Sales Centre.