• Use modern potential field data to redefine basin architecture, new play

types, source rocks and reservoirs in the southern (foreland) sections of the

Papuan Basin covering parts of Papua New Guinea (PNG), Indonesia and Iran

Jaya.

• Define and quantify source and reservoir potential using available open file samples of outcrop, shallow boreholes, drill cores, side wall cores and drill chips

• Define and quantify available oil and gas samples from existing oil well samples and oil and gas seeps in situ

• Evaluate the geological controls – stratigraphic and paleoenvironment – parameters of source and reservoir intervals of the southern Papuan Basin

• Quantify the geochemical, petrophysical and geophysical attributes of the source rock and reservoir intervals of the southern Papuan Basin

• Evaluate the gas/liquid potential of the southern Papuan Basin

• Assess potential gas/liquid resources in place

The Papuan Basin stretches across Papuan New Guinea (PNG), West Papuan

(Indonesian) and Australian territory and territorial waters. The basin has a

long exploration history but remains largely underexplored. The basin is

bounded to the north and northeast by basement highs, comprising igneous and

metamorphic rocks of the Central Highlands and Owen Stanley Ranges. To the

south, the basin boundary is not well defined and is contiguous with the

Carpentaria Basin toward the southwest.

The basin was initiated during Permo-Triassic rifting of the northern margin of Australia. Long-lived passive margin sedimentation occurred before compression in the Neogene after collision of the Australian Plate with the Melanesian Island Arc. This resulted in the formation of the present-day fold and thrust belt, site of many commercial hydrocarbon fields. Rifting in the Late Cretaceous led to the opening of the Coral Sea Basin and another contemporaneous ocean basin to the north during latest Cretaceous to Eocene time.