Three economic (1 oil and gas/condensate, 1 gas/condensate, and 1 gas) and fourteen uneconomic (6 oil, 7 gas, and 1 oil/gas) petroleum accumulations have been discovered since 1963 in the Amadeus Basin of central Australia.
The petroleum in the Amadeus Basin mainly occupies the structural, fold- related traps within the Upper Proterozoic to Upper Ordovician marine to marginal marine clastic and evaporitic sequences. It is believed to be of algal/bacterial origin. The API gravity ranges from 18 to 54o for crude oils, and from 52 to 64o for condensates; gases are dry and wet.
The basin's estimated petroleum resources as at 31 December 1985 comprise 5.74 x 106m3 of oil, 1.53 x 106m3 of natural-gas liquids, and 14.93 x 109m3 of sales gas.
Production from Mereenie (oil) and Palm Valley (gas/condensate) accumulations commenced during 1984. Up to 31 December 1985 the cumulative production from the basin stood at 156.3 x 103m3 of oil and condensate, and 44.0 x 106m3 of sales gas. The gas/condensate is transported 146 km to Alice Springs through a 20-cm-diameter pipeline; the oil is transported 269 km to Alice Springs through a 20cm pipeline and from there by rail tankers to Adelaide refinery. As from February 1987 gas from Palm Valley will also be transported to Darwin via a 1537-km pipeline of 35.3 cm diameter.