Quick facts
Overview
The Pedirka Basin is a frontier basin prospective for petroleum systems and other energy commodities at explorable depths.
The Permian to Triassic Pedirka Basin is an intracratonic sedimentary basin, forming the middle of three stacked basins in the southeastern corner of the Northern Territory (NT) that also extend over areas of adjoining South Australia and Queensland. It has an area of about 100 000 km2, approximately half of which is in the NT (Simpson Desert area). In the NT, it unconformably overlies either the Neoproterozoic to Palaeozoic Warburton Basin or Amadeus Basin and is unconformably overlain by the Mesozoic Eromanga Basin. It comprises mainly shallow fluvial and lacustrine sandstone, siltstone, mudstone, coal, shale, glacial sediments.
The Pedirka Basin has a long history of petroleum exploration since the 1960s, yet remains relatively underexplored. A number of companies have explored for petroleum, base metals, uranium, precious metals, diamonds and mineral sands. Exploration companies have included but not limited to BHP Billiton, Rio Tinto, CRA Exploration, Pan Continental Mining, Roebuck Resources, Amerada Petroleum, Central Petroleum, Merlin Coal, Tri Star Energy and Ebony Energy for mineable thermal coal. Current explorers include BR Simpson Pty Ltd and Pedirka Basins Pty Ltd.
Petroleum
The Pedirka Basin is prospective for both conventional and unconventional oil and gas. The Pedirka (Warburton,and Eromanga) basins have an abundance of organically rich source rocks, porous and permeable reservoirs with effective vertical seals, and closed anticlinal structures. Reservoir objectives and their associated source rocks range in age from earliest Cambrian to Early Cretaceous. Upper Palaeozoic and Mesozoic rocks remain the primary exploration targets but underlying Palaeozoic (Cambrian to Devonian) clastic and carbonate rocks provide significant secondary targets. At least three unnamed petroleum systems are present in the Simpson Desert area; these incorporate source rocks of the Permian Purni and Triassic Peera Peera formations (Pedirka Basin).
Other energy potential
The Pedirka Basin contains coal horizons and may also have potential for naturally occurring hydrogen, geological storage and geothermal energy.
Mineral commodities
For an overview of the mineral prospectivity view the Geology of the Northern Territory Chapter 38 Pedirka Basin.
There is a limited number of active exploration leases and permits within the Pedirka Basin. Current explorers include Tri-Star Group, BR Simpson Pty Ltd and Pedirka Basins Pty Ltd.
View onshore exploration activity .
The Simpson Desert area is extensively covered by seismic acquisition and several petroleum wells.
NTGS Report 22 provides an overview of the petroleum potential of the Pedirka basin and overlying Warburton and underlying Eromanga basins.
Open file petroleum company reports and all NTGS data and information including maps and GIS products on the Warburton, Pedirka and Eromanga basins are available from the GEMIS website.