SLB has delivered the Barrow Dampier CCS Regional Study, on behalf of Chevron and Geoscience Australia. As the largest carbon storage basin assessment and subsurface database of its kind in Australia, the project helps address current data limitations and assess the CO₂ storage potential of the Barrow and Dampier subbasins.

The Australian government has set a 43% emissions reduction target (against a 2005 baseline) for 2030, in the drive to meet net zero goals by 2050. They aim to reach this target, in part, through greenhouse gas storage license rounds, but face challenges due to a lack of suitable subsurface data.

Existing data on the North West Shelf, acquired over 50 years for oil and gas exploration, is not suitable for modern CCS workflows. This limitation affects industry players, hindering their ability to scale up new injection sites.

Twenty-nine legacy seismic surveys and 1600 legacy wells were evergreened into a tailored, high resolution CCS subsurface database. A global project team, with over 50 contributors, processed, analyzed and delivered these significant volumes of data.

The team took a multi-disciplinary approach, including basin modeling, seismic interpretation, and play chance mapping of high graded CO₂ storage opportunities across the two subbasins. This was supported using SLB digital solutions and tools including the Delfi™ digital platform, Omega™ geophysical data processing software, and Techlog™ wellbore software in combination with targeted machine learning (ML).

The Barrow Dampier CCS Regional Study has delivered the first fully reprocessed, CCS-focused seismic dataset in the Northern Carnarvon Basin, with over 25,000 km² in coverage. It has produced the first basin-scale well database including petrophysical and rock-physics analysis. This has come together to build a portfolio of carbon storage opportunities in the Barrow and Dampier subbasins, including both depleted fields and saline aquifer sites.

The project also delivered a publicly available screening atlas, to accelerate container selection, cycle time to CO₂ injection, and Australia’s progress towards net zero.