VGP Technical Report 10 - New kerogen kinetics data from legacy rock cuttings, Onshore Otway Basin, Victoria.

Category: Victorian Gas Program	Product Code: MP-R-160239
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Product description:

About the Victorian Gas Program:
The Victorian Gas Program (VGP) is a comprehensive science-led program, incorporating geoscientific and
environmental research to assess the risks, benefits and impacts of potential onshore conventional gas
exploration and production.

The program is also investigating the potential for further discoveries of onshore conventional and offshore gas in the Otway and Gippsland geological basins and assessing the feasibility of additional onshore underground gas storage in depleted reservoirs around the Port Campbell area.

The VGP includes an extensive, proactive and phased community and stakeholder engagement program,
through which the results of the scientific studies are being communicated.

Executive summary:
New kerogen kinetics data have been acquired from selected legacy rock cuttings samples from proven and potential petroleum source rock formations in the Victorian onshore Otway Basin. This study forms part of the Victorian Gas Program (VGP) and the results complement sparse historical kinetic measurements held by the Geological Survey of Victoria (GSV).

As part of the VGP geoscience program, GSV is studying petroleum systems components (reservoir, seal, source) to assess the petroleum prospectivity of the Victorian Otway Basin and estimate the potential for further conventional gas discoveries, onshore and offshore within Victoria’s jurisdiction.

Kerogen is a type of organic matter found in source rocks, and the type of hydrocarbons that are generated (i.e. gas or oil or both or none) are dependent on the kerogen type. Kinetics is concerned with understanding and measuring the rates of chemical reactions; in this case, the conversion of kerogen to hydrocarbons under increasing temperatures. The petroleum generation history in a sedimentary basin can be reconstructed using kerogen kinetics.

While it is common practice to use standardised kerogen kinetics parameters to perform hydrocarbon generation modelling of source rocks, the use of kinetics directly derived from the source rocks to be modelled will take into account local variations in kerogen content and expected hydrocarbon composition. This report thus provides new kerogen kinetic data intended for specific use in hydrocarbon generation modelling in the Otway Basin.

Energy Resources Consulting Pty Ltd (ERC) in Brisbane performed kerogen kinetics analysis on 20 thermally immature legacy rock cuttings samples taken from the GSV Drill Core Library in Werribee. The samples were selected from 16 wells and boreholes from onshore Otway Basin fine-grained carbonaceous and coal-bearing geological units including the Skull Creek Mudstone, Waarre Formation, Eumeralla Formation (including the Killara Coal Measures), Laira Formation and the Casterton Formation. The 20 samples were selected to evaluate for source rock richness and quality, kerogen type, thermal maturity and bulk rock kinetics.

Kerogen kinetics data were acquired across multiple heating rates using a Hydrocarbon Analyzer with Kinetics (HAWK^®) instrument, producing results suitable for use in petroleum systems modelling software to determine kerogen to hydrocarbon transformation rates and hydrocarbon generation temperature ranges over geological time. The attachments to this report contain the raw kinetics data that will enable estimation of hydrocarbon generation in selected formations across the onshore Otway Basin.

Bibliographic reference:
Revie, D.J, & Crosdale, P.J., 2019. New kerogen kinetics data from legacy rock cuttings, Onshore Otway Basin, Victoria. Victorian Gas Program Technical Report 10. Geological Survey of Victoria. Department of Jobs, Precincts and Regions.

Download:
The downloadable version of this report is supplied in PDF format (2.8 MB), accessible version (DOCX 3.8 MB), Attachment A1 (ZIP 3.2 MB) and Attachment A2 (XLSX 1.3 MB).