Publications

Deepwater Kutai basin has been one of the prolific hydrocarbon basins in the Makassar Strait. However, the endeavour has been mostly focused in the Cenozoic deposits. Basin floor fans, being difficult to map on seismic, are one of the propositions that does not get management’s buy-in that easily as a drillable prospect. In this case CSEM, a technology which is not governed by seismic principles, comes to the rescue. CSEM, with its unique measurement of resistivity, helps detect not only the difficult traps such as basin floor fans, but also helps in delineating the trap extent, which eventually helps to better predict net rock volumes and hydrocarbon volumes. A previously acquired 2D CSEM data in the Kutai Basin, when re-processed and re-interpreted, gave new insight thanks to the evolution of the technology. A few lines, located in open acreage, and hence justified re-processing when put through 2.5D inversion, showed that there was enough room for future exploration. These inversion results not only gave an idea about the shape and sizes of the anomalies which may be interpreted as hydrocarbon accumulations, but also answered two of the key questions. Firstly, why did CSEM not see the primary target in the Hiu Aman-01 well? Secondly, does the anomaly seen below the TD of Hiu Aman-01 well bear any merit for deeper exploration?. Through integrating significant amounts of data has let us to suggest that there is a high possibility that the anomaly below the Hiu Aman-01 well has been charged with significant volumes of hydrocarbons,. The new re-processing results also indicate that there may be merit in re-offering the open acreage. Since 2D CSEM data doesn’t provide the same level of detail as 3D surveys, a 3D CSEM acquisition would aid exploration immensely.