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The geological significance of the discovery of oil at Rough Range, Western Australia

Created 17/10/2025

Updated 17/10/2025

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On 4th December, 1953 the discovery of oil in West Australian Petroleum Company's first exploration bore, Rough Range, No. 1, was announced. It was stated that the tested flow was 500 barrels a day. This is the first significant flow of oil in Australia, although small flows of oil and some flows of gas have occurred in other parts of the continent. Despite the fact that this is the first exploration bore for oil in this basin, the stratigraphy and structure of the basin is moderately well established. The main new fact that has so far come out of this bore is the indubitable presence of oil in a basin where no seepage or other direct sign of petroleum has been found. The following short statement of the stratigraphy, structure and palaeogeography of the Carnarvon Basin as at present known will indicate the geological background on which the West Australian Petroleum Company decided to test.

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Field Value
Title The geological significance of the discovery of oil at Rough Range, Western Australia
Language eng
Licence Not Specified
Landing Page https://data.gov.au/data/en/dataset/6f7e12f6-5bed-4fab-b9a6-b4ec8ad117bb
Contact Point
Geoscience Australia Data
clientservices@ga.gov.au
Reference Period 22/04/2018
Geospatial Coverage
Map data © OpenStreetMap contributors
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  "type": "Polygon"
}
Data Portal Geoscience Australia

Data Source

This dataset was originally found on Geoscience Australia "The geological significance of the discovery of oil at Rough Range, Western Australia". Please visit the source to access the original metadata of the dataset:
https://ecat.ga.gov.au/geonetwork/srv/eng/csw/dataset/the-geological-significance-of-the-discovery-of-oil-at-rough-range-western-australia