A gas strike made by the Department of Minerals and Energy in the Officer Basin in WA has set a precedent – it is the first recorded occurrence of gas in that area.
The department’s geologists encountered a gas show at a depth of 1483 metres while drilling a stratigraphic bore hole near the WA/SA border.
The bore hole, Vines 1, located about 190 kilometres east of Warburton in the Officer Basin, is part of the petroleum initiative program instituted by the department’s Geological Survey Division.
The gas show is similar to those discovered elsewhere in Protero-zoic rocks in the Officer Basin in SA and in the Amadeus Basin in the Northern Territory.
WA Mines Minister Norman Moore believes this discovery will be particularly encouraging to the onshore oil exploration industry in WA, given that the Amadeus Basin, which supplied the Northern Territory with gas as well as with some oil production, had proven gas presence from Proterozoic to Ordovician rocks.
“lt demonstrates the importance of the work being carried out by the division to enhance the petroleum prospectivity of the State’s extensive and essentially unexplored onshore sedimentary basins,” the Minister said.
