Publications

The Badak Field, operated by VICO Indonesia is one of the worlds giant gas fields. Located in East Kalimantan, the field lies in the northern part of the 80 kilometers long Badak - Handil giant anticline. Discovered in January 1972, production started in October 1976 and reached a peak of 1,091 MMscfd in December 1990. The Badak field today is a very mature gas field. By August 2007 production had declined to 80 MMscfd. Wellwork activities (also known as rigless intervention) are the usual way to maintain or increase production in VICO fields including Badak. Like many other deltaic environment reservoirs in the world, the Badak field is extremely complicated, and consists of a large number of reservoirs consisting of hundreds of small lens reservoirs and giant stacked channels. The complicated geometry is a serious challenge to geologists who are responsible for determining lateral and vertical communication between the individual sand units. It is estimated that more than 90% of the Badak reservoir units have already been identified and correctly mapped as a result of data obtained during infill drilling and subsequent rigless activities in the wells. Most of the reservoirs units, especially the larger ones, have been intensively drained over the life of the field, and only a few of them are still producing today at a low rate due to depletion. Finding zones with remaining production potential that are candidates for rigless activity has become much more of a challenge for the Base Management Team. The analytical methods used in the past by Production geologists and petroleumengineers to find these potential rigless candidates zones are no longer considered as applicable as they once were due to the maturity of the field. This paper describes the new analytical methods that are in use today and are successful in identifying rigless opportunities. These new methods have contributed significantly to sustaining the production from the Badak field, which is today producing at around 100 MMscfd.