Sharon Tiainen (left) and Paul Strong (right), receive vote of thanks from Rob Kirk (centre) for their stimulating SA/NT branch luncheon talk
“New Geological Studies Leading to 2025 Acreage Release in the Polda and Otway Basins, SA” The July 31 meeting was attended by 35 participants
The Polda Basin is a 10,000 km2 Neoproterozoic to Jurassic basin covering the central western portion of the Eyre Peninsula of South Australia and extends westwards into the Great Australian Bight.
By John Coffin
This year we have seen plenty of publicity and interest in elastic full waveform inversion, or eFWI and the potential benefits and advantages it can provide. At Delft Inversion we have been using eFWI for over 12 years focussing on quantitative interpretation and seismic reservoir characterisation. This article explains how and why we do this.
The eFWI technology developed at Delft Inversion is called WEB-AVO which stands for Wave Equation Based AVO inversion. So, what does this mean? We solve the integral representation of the wave equation.
On 18th July, PESA-WA held their “Winter Warmer” networking event at The Globe Lounge Bar in Perth CBD, which this year featured a Jazz Quartet. Sophie Kerr and her band (WAPPA and ex-WAPPA students) played fantastic mellow as well as lively jazz tunes. The event was really well attended (62 people). It was a great opportunity to socialise with colleagues, friends and new members, particularly on a cold Winter’s evening. There was an open bar until 10pm, with fantastic food platters and raffle prizes.
The Queensland branch July meeting returned to the Port Office Hotel for an interesting talk on Hydrogen exploration from Dr Josh Whitcombe, VP of Development and Operations at HyTerra.
Josh took time to introduce the audience to the different types of hydrogen and where they might be found. He then dived into more detail about the exploration and appraisal work Hyterra are doing at their Nemaha Project in Kansas, USA.
Nemaha is located between Kansas City and Wichita in the centre of a major industrial and manufacturing hub.
Roisin McGee A* , George Mills A and Simon Sturrock B
- Author Affiliations - A Carnarvon Energy, Perth, WA, Australia. B Strat Trap, Perth, WA, Australia.
* Correspondence to: rmcgee@cvn.com.au
Australian Energy Producers Journal 65, EP24163 https://doi.org/10.1071/EP24163
Accepted: 29 March 2025 Published: 22 May 2025
© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of Australian Energy Producers. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)
The Bedout Sub-basin, part of the Roebuck Basin on Western Australia’s North West Shelf, has drawn interest since hydrocarbon discoveries at Roc, Dorado and Pavo. Despite these successes, the region remains underexplored.
Early bird registration is open until 18th July, so register now
Check out the list of accepted papers here
We are delighted to invite you to the Australasian Exploration Geoscience Conference (AEGC) 2025, taking place in the beautiful city of Perth, Australia from 8-11 September 2025. AEGC is the premier event for petroleum and mineral geoscience in Australasia and promises to be an exciting and enriching experience, bringing geologists, geophysicists, geochemists and industry professionals from across the globe.
Perth is known for its stunning landscapes and vibrant culture, is the perfect backdrop for the 2025 conference.
The June technical lunch meeting of PESA SA Branch featured a fascinating presentation by Dr Markus Häring (Consultant) on “The impact of triggered earthquakes of the Basel geothermal project 2006 on Engineered Geothermal Systems.” Dr Häring was the Director of Geothermal Explorers and faced the criminal court of Basel City for causing material damage and flooding as a result of the induced seismicity - fortunately he was cleared of the charge. Dr Häring will present an expanded version of this talk as a PESA Webinar later this year, so stay tuned.
The presentation is timely as there's been a resurgence in geothermal energy exploration in SA with new licences granted over the last few years to test new exploration concepts and technologies.
Above image: The last time that Nick was in Tasmania (2017). Caution, some changes may have occurred since then!
After 10 years of sterling service, Tim O’Brien is stepping down from the branch presidency and Nick Hoffman is taking up the role. We would like to thank Tim for his dedication to the role through thick and thin, whilst also toiling hard against the Victorian government bureaucracy over onshore gas. Perhaps the tide is finally turning there as gas shortages creep ever closer to the east coast energy market?
Summary by Dr Fiona Burns
On Tuesday 10th June, DEMIRES (in collaboration with PESA WA and CCUSNA) organised a core workshop entitled “Perth Basin from a CCS Perspective” which was presented by Julie Cass and Dr Arthur Mory. We spent a day at the Perth Core Library considering how our collection of cores helps us to understand CCS targets in the Perth Basin. We also delved into the importance of characterising seals, the influence of reservoir heterogeneity vs homogeneity and how diagenesis impacts pore geometry.
Summary by Dr Fiona Burns
On Thursday evening, 15th May PESA and SPE held a joint evening event at the ParmeliaHotel. The key focus of the presentations were projects and insights from across Australiaon the topic of CCS, with three separate speakers invited.
Robert Root’s talk (Chevron Australia) was entitled “Gorgon Carbon Capture and Storage –Insights and Lessons Learned”. Rob provided a highly informative overview of Gorgon CCSincluding performance to date, system optimization, and key lessons for other CCS projects.