The Late Palaeozoic Cooper Basin is a major source of hydrocarbons and is especially important in providing the natural gas needs of much of south-eastern Australia. The basin is now a mature petroleum province, with more than 1200 wells drilled and over 90 000 km of seismic data gathered in the South Australian part of the basin. In spite of its importance the origin of its hydrocarbons is not well understood. The basin is unusual in that the basin fill is entirely non-marine, and all work to date indicates that the hydrocarbons are derived from interbedded coals within the major non-marine reservoir intervals. There is, however, disagreement as to whether the coals provide suitable, and/or adequate, source materials for oil generation, in particular. Recent studies have suggested that alginite may play a significant role in oil generation in the basin. In this study an attempt has been made to evaluate alginite as a potential source material. To that end data relevant to the distribution of algal materials have been extracted from more than 1000 well completion reports. The data show that algae are not uniformly distributed across the basin, but occur in mud-free environments marginal to major coal thicknesses. These observations are consistent with what is known of the biology of modern algal equivalents, in that they require high light intensity and a high nutrient environment in shallow ponds or lagoons. This suggests that algal sources for crude oil could be restricted to specific basinal settings lying between coal and mudstone depocentres. In the Cooper Basin it is notable that gas shows are widespread but oil shows are areally restricted. In particular, oil shows appear on the Murteree Ridge adjacent to the main concentrations of algal material at the southeastern end of the Wooloo Trough, suggesting a local environmentally specific source. These site specific environments are determined to a large extent by basin dynamics.