Regional Geology of the Roebuck Basin

The Roebuck Basin is located on the central part of Australia’s North West Shelf (Figure 1), covering approximately 90 000 km² between the Northern Carnarvon Basin to the south and the Browse Basin to the north, the Canning Basin to the east, and the Argo Abyssal Plain to the northwest. The discovery of oil and gas-condensate at Phoenix South, Roc and Dorado has led to the establishment of the Bedout Sub-basin as an emerging hydrocarbon province in the otherwise underexplored Roebuck Basin (Figure 2). The existence of an active petroleum system has been proven in the Bedout Sub-basin and future production is highly probable. Gross 2C contingent resources at these discoveries, together with the historical discovery at Phoenix, are 1080 Bcf (30.58 Bcm) of gas, and 205 MMbbl (32.59 GL) of oil and condensate (Carnarvon Petroleum Ltd, 2019a). A resurgence in exploration activity in the basin, following these recent discoveries, is providing new data that illuminates the basins geology, structural architecture and prospectivity, particularly for the highly prospective Triassic succession.