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Moonie Oil Field
PL 1 permit, Surat Basin, onshore eastern Queensland, approximately 300 kilometres west of
Brisbane. Santos Ltd has a 100% interest and is the operator (Santos, 2005).
Oil was discovered on the Moonie Anticline within the Jurassic Precipice Formation in 1961.
The 24.3 million-barrel (3859 mega litre) oil field was brought into production during 1964 with
peak production of approximately 9000 bbls/day occurring during 1966. As at 1996 cumulative
oil production was approximately 3686 mega litres (23.2 MMbbls).The Precipice Sandstone at the
Moonie location has an average permeability of 290 mD with an average porosity of 18% (Cadman
et al. 1998).
The field is in the latter stages of decline with 0.0694 mmboe of crude oil produced during 2004
with a very high water cut. Most of the 50 wells at Moonie and the nearby satellite fields are shut in,
and less than 10 wells are still producing. Eight wells on the fields are used for water injection.
Recently a 3D seismic survey has been acquired over the field
(http://www.santos.com.au/Content.aspx?p=2268).
The Moonie field has the potential to be suitable for enhanced oil recovery or as a CO 2 storage site.
As cooperation with Santos Ltd would be required for this to be realised, it was thought impractical
to make it the subject of a separate geological or geophysical review with the limited available open
file data. This is particularly true considering that post 3D data acquisition, all available seismic,
well and field data would have been incorporated into determining the location of the two
subsequent wells drilled on the Moonie structure.
The GEODISC project concluded that, depleted gas fields in the Surat Basin (UEI’s 30, 31, 33, 34,
and 35) represent a very low risk sequestration option with a high geologic chance of success
(35-52%) for volumes of < 0.19 TCF of CO 2 (Bradshaw et al., 2003).
3.3. Older/Deeper Basins
3.3.1 Cooper Basin
The Cooper Basins’ location in central Australia is approximately 1000 km from the nearest coal
fired power station. Exploiting petroleum resources from the Cooper Basin is the primary activity
at this time. This activity results in the venting to the atmosphere of potentially sequesterable CO 2 .
The Cooper Basin has not been reviewed in this study.
The GEODISC project concluded that, the Cooper Basin is an ideal site for carbon-dioxide
sequestration with a 90% chance of successful CO 2 sequestration (Bradshaw et al., 2003).
3.3.2 Devonian to Carboniferous Basins (Warburton, Adavale, Drummond, Hodgkinson,
Gilberton, Bundock, Clarke River, and Burdekin Basins).
The Carboniferous to Devonian Adavale Basin has the highest storage potential of the older basins,
although comparatively this is still low and containment may be problematic due to fault leakage
and the potential for injected CO 2 to dissolve the carbonate formations. The basin has been
extensively investigated with 46 exploration wells and 11 appraisal wells, with the most likely
storage option being within the Gilmore field once it is depleted. The Gilmore field is a 118 BCF,
3352 m deep potentially fault controlled gas field and is the only commercial hydrocarbon
accumulation discovered in the basin to date (deBoer, 1996). Sedimentary rocks
within Devonian ─ Carboniferous aged basins, tend to be diagenetically altered, with sediments
buried deeply. Additionally reservoir characteristics are poor and the basins are overlain by up to
1000 -3000 m of superior reservoirs (Miyazaki & Ozmic, 1987). The reservoir quality, remoteness
from CO 2 sources, and juxtaposition with more suitable storage options makes these basins
unsuitable for CO 2 storage.
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