PETROLEUM GEOLOGY AND EXPLORATION POTENTIAL OF THE CANNING BASIN OFF AUSTRALIA

Studies of sedimentary-tectonic evolution and petroleum geological features are carried out in this paper for the offshore Canning Basin on the northwest shelf of Australia, using the data of regional geology, seismics and drillings.It is revealed that the offshore Basin of Canning has experienced four evolutionary stages from intracontinental rifting, through craton margin depression and passive rifting, up to drifting period, and filled with Mesozoic deposits. There occur two sets of source-reservoir-cap assemblages in the Basin.So far, oil and gas have been discovered only in the Triassic petroleum system of the Bedout Depression. However, the whole basin remains rather low in exploration level. Integrated geological analyses suggest that the Bedout and Rowley depressions are prospective for future exploration.