Hosted with thanks to our Platinum Sponsors TGS:

And our Gold Sponsors DUG, Searcher Seismic,  Katalyst Data Management and PetroDip

PESA WA invites you to our November technical luncheon on Thursday 19th November

“Oil by exception:  Where and why liquids enrichment occurs in the gassy petroleum systems of the Australian margin”

Andrew Murray¹, Zhiyong He² and Casey Edwards³

¹Murray Partners PPSA Pty. Ltd.  ²Zetaware Inc.  ³Source Geoscience Pty. Ltd.

Recently, we have written and spoken about the fundamental factors controlling the occurrence of oil vs. gas or, more generally, liquids vs. wet/dry gas (Murray and He, 2020). We have also discussed the tendency of geochemical fluid-source correlations to exaggerate the liquids component any mixed source system (Murray and Peters, 2020).  In this talk, we will focus specifically on the petroleum systems of the Australian margin, wherein liquids occur almost “by exception”.  By this we mean that while most systems are gas-prone, individual circumstances have allowed relatively small but commercially viable accumulations of liquids. Our studies in this area are ongoing and, for this, talk examples will be selected from the following:

• The Carboniferous sourced oils of the onshore Canning Basin – a paleo-petroleum system and a rare, genuinely oil prone source rock?
• Volatile oils and rich gas-condensates in the Bedout Sub-basin: A new type of source rock?
• Oil rimmed gas accumulations in the Vulcan Sub-Basin: Nature’s fractional distillation column
• The high CGR of some Carnarvon Basin gas fields: Does high CGR gas mean lower or higher chance of finding oil?
• The Northern Bonaparte Basin: Under saturated very light oils in leaky traps – gas removed by moving water?
• The Vincent Field: An oil-rimmed gas accumulation with biodegradation and secondary biogenic gas
• The likelihood of an undrilled nuisance oil rim in the Wilcox gas-condensate field
• The possibility of an undrilled material oil rim in or near the giant Sunrise field

In some of these cases the mechanism of liquids enrichment is clear. For example, rich condensate and volatile oils can only exist in certain PT conditions. In other cases, a single mechanism cannot explain the high liquids content and a combination of factors may be at work.

References:

Murray A. and He Z. (2020). Oil vs. Gas: What are the limits to prospect-level hydrocarbon phase prediction.  AAPG Search and Discovery article #42513

Murray A. and Peters K.E. (2020) Quantifying multiple source rock contributions to petroleum fluids: bias in using compound ratios and neglecting the gas fraction.  In press, AAPG Bull.

Ticket Prices:

Member (Early Bird): $69.00

Concession Member [Retired, Graduate or Hardship] (Early Bird): $59.00

Student Member (Early Bird): $39.00

Non-Member: $99.00

Member (Non-Early Bird): $79.00.

Early bird pricing ends Monday  at 5pm (AWST). All ticket sales close at 5pm Tuesday.

Refund Policy: Refunds are only applicable if notified in writing to WA-secretary@pesa.com.au prior to the close of ticket sales.