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Perth Basin Petroleum System

Yong Shoon Wei
Chai Yik Ying
Sumitkumar Pankajbhai
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Perth Basin-Overview
North to south trending sedimentary
basin.
Extending about 1,300km along
southwestern margin.
Dominated by Darling Fault and a series
of troughs bounded by transfer faults.
Large(172,300km
2
), structurally complex
basin.
Mainly continental clastic rocks ranging
in age from Permian to recent.

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Most oil and gas
discoveries are from
onshore northern
Perth Basin.

Yardarino, Dongara,
Mondarra, etc.
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Petroleum prospectivity
(Northern Perth basin)
Six commercial hydrocarbon onshore fields have been
discovered.
Dongara oil and gas fields, the largest fields discovered.
Mature source rocks widespread, reservoirs are abundant,
structures well timed for hydrocarbon entrapment.
Main sources of oil - marine Lower Triassic basal Kockatea
Shale, with reservoirs in Lower Triassic and Permian
sandstones.
Main source for gas - Permian Irwin River Coal Measures, with
reservoirs in the Upper Permian and Jurassic.
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Petroleum prospectivity
(Southern Perth basin)
No onshore commercial fields discovered.
Permian to Cetaceous stratigraphic and structural evolution
similar to northern Perth basin.
Marine intervals do not occur, where continental depositional
environments dominated to the Neocomian.
Thick regional shales absent and poor sealing potential.
Potential reservoirs, source rocks, and anticlinal traps are well
documented.
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Dongara Area- Northern Perth
Basin
Lower Permian to Upper
Jurassic rocks with several oil
and gas fields
Located near the town of
Dongara approximately 360 km
north of Perth
30 wells has been drilled in the
Dongara field
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Reservoir- Dongara field
Main reservoir of the Dongara
field is the Upper Permian
Dongara Sandstone
Dongara sandstone deposited in
a shallow marine environment
(beach and lower shoreface
facies)
Other facies recognized within
the Dongara sandstone in the
northern Perth Basin range from
fluviatile to shelf environments
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Seal
Vertically & Laterally across the bounding faults
Claystones
Siltstones
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Structure
The Dongara structure is a strongly faulted
Northwest trending anticline, bounded to
the cast by the north-south mountain Bridge
fault
There are 5 periods of structural
development can be recognized
During Early Cretaceous, the basin is
leading to uplift and erosion of up to 8
kilometers
Deposition in the northern Perth Basin
commenced in the early Permian
A series of half grabens are formed
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Reservoir Description
The upper zones consist of massive medium to coarse grained
and well sorted
Heavy minerals are concentrated in the lower part of the
sandstone
The middle zone consists fine grained, thinly bedded
sandstones and conglomeratic is present
The lower zone consists of fine to very coarse grained,
moderately to poorly sorted and quartzone sandstone
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Hydrocarbon Properties
Waxy paraffinic
35 API gravity oil
Oil is sourced from a mixture
of marine and terrestrial
organic matter
It is slight biodegradation
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Gondwanaland, is the name given
to the more southerly of two
supercontinents (the other being
Laurasia) that were part of the
Pangaea supercontinent that
existed from approximately 510 to
180 million years ago(Mya).

The Perth Basin began forming in
the Late Permian age during the
breakup of gondwana as Australian
continental palate began rifting
away from the African and Indian
continental palate

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During the Permian, what is now the
Perth Basin was the eastern half of a rift
valley that formed as the continental
plates were pulled apart.

This pulling apart, which continued until
the Jurassic led to central area
subsiding as a graben allowing the sea
to enter with the subsequent deposition
of transgressive marine sediments.
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The Perth Basin architecture is dominated by extensional faulting that
formed during sedimentation and controlled the distribution of the
sediments.
The primary mechanism for sedimentation was originally subsidence creating
accommodation followed by fault extension and more recently, sediment
loading.

i.e. the basin continuing to subside because of the weight of sediments within
it.
The eastern boundary of the main Perth Basin is the Darling
Fault, topographically expressed as the Darling Scarp.
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the basins were filled with glacial to pro-glacial marine (Holmwood
Shale and High Cliff and Woodynook sandstones) and deltaic
sediments (Irwin River and Rosabrook coal).

Deglaciation commenced in the Sakmarian and the rifts continued to
fill from the south to north with deltaic to progressively more marine
sediments
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We have examined the type of raw material needed and
how it must accumulate in the natural environment. The
next link in the process is to examine what happens to this
organic matter (OM) when buried and subjected to
increased temperature and pressure.
Once the organic material is buried within the sea floor,
transformation begins. It is a slow process that occurs to the
OM
There are three phases in the transformation of Organic material
into hydrocarbons: Diagenesis, Catagenesis, and Metagenesis
(Tissot, 1997).
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four requirement are necessary for large accumulation of oil and gas
Source rock
Reservoir rock
Seal rock
Trap

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The Permian source rocks appear to be mature for gas generation
in large tracts of the northern Perth Basin, either because of a
relatively high geothermal gradient or because of their depth of
burial.
Thats why Most of the oil produced in Perth basin from the Late Triassic to
Middle Jurassic (onshore)
These Permian- and Early Triassic-age rift-sag deposits are
associated with the major petroleum system in the north Perth
Basin,
Sedimentation during the Permian age work as source rock for Perth basin

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Seal of reign is provided mainly by thick and laterally extensive
Kockatea shale.
Some anticline breaches and fault also provide the effective trap