Petroleum Geology of Offshore Basins
Last updated:29 August 2023
The Australian Government releases offshore areas for greenhouse gas storage assessment and petroleum exploration as part of the government’s strategy to support the identification of suitable greenhouse gas storage sites and to promote the exploration for oil and natural gas. Energy companies are invited to submit nominations of areas for inclusion in future acreage releases. In each release round companies have the opportunity to submit work program bids. The acreage release process in Commonwealth waters is managed under the Offshore Petroleum and Greenhouse Gas Storage Act 2006.
Geoscience Australia supports these releases and ongoing investment in exploration with a suite of regional petroleum geological information, comprising summaries on stratigraphy, petroleum systems, exploration histories, marine environmental information and key references. Also included are various thematic maps and figures.
Regional geological overviews and updated information for Australia’s offshore basins.
Australia's offshore hydrocarbon provinces
Map showing Australia’s offshore oil and gas provinces.
Information on Australia's onshore and offshore sedimentary basins is also available from Geoscience Australia's Australian Geological Provinces Database. This database can be interactively queried using the Geoscience Australia Data Discovery Portal. Legacy information on the petroleum geology of Australia’s basins can be accessed by selecting the region of interest below. For updated information on Australia’s offshore hydrocarbon provinces refer to the Acreage Release pages.
- Basins included in this area are: Eastern Plateau, Lord Howe Rise, Sydney Basin and Townsville Basin.
- Basins included in this area are: Arafura Basin, Bonaparte Basin, Browse Basin, Money Shoal Basin and Roebuck Basin.
- Basins included in this area are: Bass Basin, Bight Basin, Gippsland Basin, Otway Basin, Sorell Basin.
- Basins included in this area are: Mentelle Basin, Naturaliste Plateau and Perth Basin.
- Basins included in this area are: Adavale Basin, Bowen Basin, Darling Basin, Officer Basin, Ipswich Basin.