Publications

The Frontier Halmahera Basin is located in Eastern Indonesia between Sulawesi and West Papua and lies in a complex tectonic setting at the junction between the Eurasian Margin, Philippine Sea, and Australian plates. The Sorong fault zone defines the boundary between the Philippine Sea plate and the Australian plate. The boundary has made the analogue between the Halmahera and Salawati Basins unsuitable, therefore, field mapping was used for the assessment. The outcrops of the southeastern arm, which is included within eastern province, are predominantly limestone formations of two different ages of deposition: the Eocene reef limestones from the Batugamping Formation and Miocene detrital limestone of the Weda Formation. This study uses and gathers direct field observation, terrain morphology using digital elevation modeling, and laboratory analyses, such as petrographic and biostratigraphic. These were integrated to establish an analog for carbonate diagenetic and deposition, which can be applied to the subsurface area. This study gives new insights into the petroleum system in the Frontier Halmahera Basin region. Eocene limestones are divided into three depositional facies – lagoonal, back reef, and core reef to reef front – while the Miocene limestone has only one depositional facies: fore reef. The Eocene and Miocene limestones, which act as reservoir rocks, may exhibit good reservoir properties. These facies parameters are discussed in the assessment of the carbonate reservoir quality of the Halmahera Basin petroleum system. Shales and coals in the Weda Formation are potential-source rocks, and the shales of the same formation are the potential seal rock, as they act both inter-formational and intraformational seals for the reservoir rocks