IPA Technical Symposium
Presentation given by Ian Longley November 2016 in Jakarta at the IPA.
A Methodology for Future Exploration in Mature Indonesian Basins – Why play mapping integrated with well failure analysis matters – an example from the East Java Basin, Indonesia.
For the full featured presentation on Future exploration in Indonesia please click on the link below. If you would like more information or a demonstration of Player in an area you are currently exploring please contact us.
A Methodology for Future Exploration in Mature Indonesian Basins
Technical Paper
WHY PLAY MAPPING INTEGRATED WITH WELL FAILURE ANALYSIS MATTERS – AN EXAMPLE FROM THE EAST JAVA BASIN, INDONESIA
This paper was presented by IAN Longley, CHRIS Kenyon, ANDY Livsey, and JEFF Goodall at the 2016 Technical Symposium: INDONESIA EXPLORATION : “WHERE FROM – WHERE TO ” November 2016.
Mature basins, including many of those in Western Indonesia, are ones that have been intensively explored, typically over many decades in a competitive environment where the full technological armory available to explorers today has been routinely applied (e.g. 3D seismic imaging and depth conversion, AVO) such that all of the significant simple structural traps (anticlines, highside fault blocks/horsts etc.) have been drilled and explorers are left with the smaller typically sub economic simple traps and larger more complicated trap types. Many of these more complex trap types involve base seals, fault seals and/or pinch outs making them inherently more risky than the simple highside traps which only require an effective top seal (and flank seals where there are faults).
The challenge for explorers is firstly to recognize that DHI’s are very unlikely to provide silver bullets in such mature settings and hence it’s back to the question of how to collate what is typically a voluminous dataset of geological data from wells and seismic data in such a way that the most prospective areas for looking for subtle traps can be efficiently determined together with a calibrated understanding relative to historical success rates and discovery sizes for these different trap types. The former is delivered via the application of well-established play fairway mapping methods such that areas of proven reservoir, seal and charge are mapped out spatially on a play by play basis. There are many methods of doing this but the best method, particularly in areas of complex and laterally variable geology, is the construction of “split risk” CRS maps where the shared and independent risk components are separated for each risk element. The latter challenge is the systematic classification of the well failure, discovery and prospect inventory in these proven areas. In this way failures of complex traps beyond the proven play fairway are excluded, the explorer gets a spatial focus and the real exploration record for such tests and why they failed can be determined and the best prospects quickly high-graded.
An example of how this approach using split risking play maps and how the utilization of Player for evaluations in mature basins can be applied to data from the East Java basin was presented in Jakarta at the IPA technical symposium in November 2016. The paper and presentation demonstrate the methodology and they highlight the remaining exploration potential both within proven and unproven play areas in Indonesia basins.
If you would like more information or a demonstration of Player in an area you are currently exploring please contact us.