Perth Basin

PERTH BASIN OPERATIONS

The Perth Basin is a large basin of approximately 174,000 square kilometres that encompasses both onshore and offshore parts of south-western Western Australia. The basin extends about 1300 km from south of Perth to its northern tip offshore from Carnarvon.

Beach’s Perth Basin operations consist of the Waitsia project (operated by Mitsui E&P Australia) and Beharra Springs (operated by Beach Energy) projects.

The Beharra Springs Gas Processing Facility is a 25 TJ per day plant, processing gas from nearby wells and transporting it through the Parmelia pipeline to domestic customers in Western Australia.

Beach is working with its joint venture partner Mitsui E&P Australia (operator) to progress Waitsia Stage 2.

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PERTH BASIN EXPLORATION

Beach is undertaking an operated gas exploration program in the Perth Basin which commenced in April 2023.

The exploration campaign has already yielded a number of discoveries.

For up-to-date information on the campaign, please refer to Beach’s ASX disclosure reporting.

Geology OF THE PERTH BASIN

The Perth basin is a Silurian to Recent basin with a complex structural history and at least seven major basin phases. The basin features several deep depocentres with a maximum sediment thickness of 15000m. Perth Basin strata feature a wide range of depositional environments including alluvial, fluvial, glacially-influenced, lacustrine, deltaic and marine.

To the east the basin is bounded by the Darling Fault which is a major crustal-scale feature separating Archean-Proterozoic basement of the Yilgarn Craton from the Perth Basin sedimentary sequences. In the onshore regions most commercial fields produce from Permian-aged sandstone reservoirs although time-equivalent carbonate facies also form reservoirs in places.

Oil is generally thought to be sourced by marine shales of the Early Triassic Kockatea Formation whilst gas is sourced from multiple carbonaceous shales and coaly sequences of Permian, Triassic and Jurassic age. Two of the major reservoir units are the Dongara Sandstone (oil and gas) and the Kingia Sandstone (gas).