Introduction

In 2006 Victoria’s Department of Primary Industries (DPI) released its “Action Agenda on Climate Change and Greenhouse” (AACCG), which outlined the department’s policy response to the State Government’s Greenhouse Strategy.

Key long-term, energy-related directions contained within the AACCG include the following:

1. Support for the development of Clean Coal technologies and for the realisation of commercially viable Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) activities within the State
2. Facilitating the development of natural gas reserves in Victoria and within adjacent Commonwealth waters.

3. Exploration and development of Victoria’s geothermal energy resources.

GeoScience Victoria’s Energy Geoscience Group

DPI’s Energy Geoscience Group (EGG) within GeoScience Victoria provides geoscience and geotechnical expertise to government and industry in support of these strategies. EGG’s activities encompass the assessment of the State’s oil and natural gas resources, its coal and coal-seam gas resources, its CO2-geosequestration potential and its geothermal energy potential.

The Energy Geoscience Group comprises two teams; the Petroleum Information Team and the Basin Studies Team.

Petroleum Information
Petroleum Information has five permanent and two contract staff. The team manages petroleum data submitted to government under the various Petroleum Acts.

Providing public access to petroleum data is a priority for the Energy Geoscience Group. These data are made available publicly once the appropriate confidentiality period has expired.

The Petroleum Information team is in the process of making a complete and useable electronic catalogue of the petroleum information held by the department. So far, about 80% (about 93,000 items) of the data has been catalogued and about half of the catalogued items have been scanned. Much of this information has been released in the form of data packages which are available through our client service officers.

Basin Studies
Basin Studies has five geoscientists involved in the evaluation of the subsurface geology of the State’s three Mesozoic-Cainozoic sedimentary basins; the Gippsland, Otway and
Murray basins.

The team engages in regional geological, geochemical and geophysical studies to assess the State’s energy resource potential and prospectivity. In addition, the staff actively promote gazetted exploration acreage- and energy-related investment opportunities at national and international industry exhibitions.

The current activities of the basin studies team fall under the following broad groupings.

Current basin studies activities

Acreage Release
The Basin Studies team actively participates in acreage release programmes within Victoria’s jurisdiction and also coordinates with the Commonwealth in offshore waters. This year, three Victorian onshore permits and four offshore permits were gazetted, with bids closing on November 9th 2006.

The Energy Geoscience Group’s prospectivity assessments of these gazettal areas are available on-line at http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/minpet/

Regional Studies
The Energy Geoscience Group has undertaken a number of regional studies of the Gippsland and Otway basins, both of which are currently enjoying a significant resurgence in exploration activity. The completed studies include major stratigraphic reviews which have resulted in the identification of potential petroleum systems elements in deeper, as yet undrilled intervals of the basins’ sedimentary fill. In these studies, sedimentological, palynological, well-log and seismic data were integrated in order to interpret the depositional facies relationships that form the basis for palaeogeographic reconstructions. At APPEA 2005, a selection of such reconstructions was presented in a paper entitled “Approaches to Palaeogeographic Reconstructions of the Latrobe Group, Gippsland Basin, Southeastern Australia”.

Recently, the basin studies team has significantly expanded its capabilities in the area of basin modelling and organic geochemistry. New investigations of the hydrocarbon generation-migration-preservation histories in the Otway and Gippsland basins are presently being undertaken, with an emphasis on determining the critical success factors which control the distribution of accumulations in these areas. The results of these studies will be used to predict the occurrence of as-yet undrilled accumulations within the basins. Aspects of these investigations, such as those that include the investigation of top and fault seal integrity and 3D fluid flow modelling, will have ramifications with respect to the proposed carbon storage (geosequestration) of CO₂ in southeastern Australia (see below).

Coal Seam Gas Exploration
Until recently Victoria’s Coal Seam Gas (CSG) potential has remained relatively unexplored. This year Purus Energy Ltd began exploring the coal seam methane potential of the Killara Coal Measures in Victoria’s Otway Basin. Although their initial exploration results suggest that the targeted coals are of low permeability at these particular locations the potential of the State’s coal seam gas has yet to be fully evaluated.

Geosequestration
A key emerging role for the Energy Geoscience Group is to provide the regional geological frameworks and data for assessing CO₂geosequestration (carbon storage) processes and sites in southeastern Australia’s
sedimentary basins.

The Gippsland Basin has long been recognised as an ideal location for CO₂ geosequestration because of its close proximity to the vast brown coal reserves of the Latrobe Valley, On 21st September 2006, an Anglo American subsidiary, Monash Energy, were granted a mining licence to support the development of a $5 billion gas-to-liquids project in the area. The project, which is forecast to produce 60,000 barrels of ultra clean diesel fuel per day, will involve identifying suitable geosequestration sites for the CO2 generated during liquid production. The adjacent offshore Gippsland Basin has been identified as the most likely storage location.

In other CCS activity, the Otway Basin has been selected to undertake Australia’s first CO₂ geosequestration project. The project will seek to inject about 100,000 tonnes of CO₂ over a one to two year period. The injection well will be monitored to demonstrate the effectiveness and safety of the technology. Funding for the project is being provided by a mixture of industry and government sources, including DPI.

Geothermal Energy
Naturally-occurring hot groundwater has long been used in Victoria to heat municipal buildings. Near Robe in South Australia, warm artesian groundwater has been used in the farming of barramundi.

In 2005, the Victorian Government introduced legislation to expand on these “niche” or boutique geothermal activities. The Geothermal Energy Resources Act 2005 (GER Act) is designed to encourage major geothermal energy investment projects where the temperature is greater than 70°C or where the heat source is deeper than 1 km below the earth’s surface.

The main perceived mechanisms of geothermal energy are hydrothermal systems, either from groundwater that has been heated within the Earth to a depth of a few kilometres (hydrothermal) or from hot dry rocks (HDR).

The Energy Geoscience Group has carried out an assessment of the overall potential for geothermal energy exploitation in the State; this assessment is available online at http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/minpet/.

In April 2006, a state-wide release of acreage for exploration of geothermal energy was conducted. The invitations to bid closed on October 11th 2006.

Marketing
Energy Geoscience staff are routinely involved in DPI’s marketing efforts and actively promote open acreage and related investment opportunities within the State’s energy sector. DPI is regularly involved, as part of an all-Australian contingent, in the promotion of Victoria at the NAPE conference in Houston.

In recent years, good industry-client relationships have been developed through company visits that have involved technical presentations, discussions of petroleum geological concepts, as well as general information exchange. The Energy Geoscience Group is keen to expand on such visits and welcomes any opportunity for formal and informal meetings with our industry customers.

For further information contact
Manager Energy Geoscience
hywel.thomas@dpi.vic.gov.au
Or visit our web site
http://www.dpi.vic.gov.au/minpet/.