Report on coal exploration in Coal Licence 172 Port Keats area, Northern Territory

Abstract

The known coal-bearing strata in the Port Keats area were tested for economic coal deposits by 2654 feet of drilling during September-October 1967. The coal intersected was in partings, thin lenses or seams less than 2 feet thick. The Shale Member and the Sandstone Member of the Sugarloaf Formation both contain coal but neither member contains thick seams of good quality coal of any lateral extent. Four of the five holes drilled intersected carbonaceous material. Hole Kuriyippi 4 (fig. 1) intersected a seam of shaley, poor quality coal 2 feet thick at 548 feet. This coal seam correlates with a seam recorded at 1300 feet in oil bore Kulshill 2 and appears to be the only coal seam of any lateral extent in the sediments. The Permian sediments have now been drilled over a large area by the old government coal bores, the oil bores, and by the 1967 Thiess Bros coal bores. The failure of these bores to find substantial coal deposits indicates that Port Keats can no longer be regarded as an important coal potential area.