Porosity, Permeability and Density Measurements from Carrara 1

Abstract

This report has been prepared in response to a request from Adam Bailey and Liuqi Wang representing Geoscience Australia (GA) in December 2021 concerning conducting rock mechanics and petrophysics laboratory tests on 32 samples collected parallel to the whole core axis (in general dipping between 20-45), from the Carrara-1 well on the western flank of the Carrara Sub-basin in the Northern Territory of Australia. This initial report has been extended with a further 21 samples collected from the same previous 32 samples collection but extracted parallel to bedding for comparison of some properties.

In this petrophysics report, X-ray CT images were acquired on the whole core section collection while some tests performed include gas porosity and permeability on 32 plugs parallel to the core axis using N2 gas, while the 21 extra samples parallel to bedding were measured with helium gas. Note that 7 plugs from the plug collection parallel to the core axis were tested for gas porosity-permeability using both N2 and He gases for comparison of results. The whole collection was imaged by X-ray CT scanner and grain density measurements on powder samples were performed on offcuts from the 32 samples plugged parallel to the whole core axis locations to compute the total porosity. Nine tests were also carried out on the low permeability gas permeameter on suitable samples for the whole core-axis parallel collection and for 3 plugs parallel to bedding.

This work was undertaken by CSIRO under contract by Geoscience Australia as part of the Exploring for the Future program (EFTF).