SPE 166647

Integrated Play-Based Exploration Methodology for Screening and

Prospect Assessment Using 3D Seismic Data from Makassar Strait,
Indonesia
Ananda Shankar Roy, Sonali Roy & Pebrina Puspa Sari, Schlumberger Indonesia

Copyright 2013, Society of Petroleum Engineers

This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Offshore Europe Oil and Gas Conference and Exhibition held in Aberdeen, UK, 3–6 September 2013.

This paper was selected for presentation by an SPE program committee following review of information contained in an abstract submitted by the author(s). Contents of the paper have not been
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Abstract
Exploration challenges are increasing every day since easy-to-access hydrocarbon resources have been mostly exploited in
past decades and the search for profitable deep-water plays is increasing worldwide. The approach is not only to look for
hydrocarbons in new areas, but also to look for hydrocarbons in old places with new ideas, whilst managing exploration risk.
An integrated petroleum systems based software suite allows identification and characterization of prospective areas. This
approach facilitates a systematic and consistent progression from play-based exploration, to assessment of geological chance-
of-success and probabilistic volumetric calculations for each prospect in a play.

A new integrated petroleum system based play evaluation workflow has been implemented to screen the Makassar Strait
based on available public domain data and literature. The prospective areas were studied in detail by incorporating 3D
seismic data to gain a better understanding of structural controls and lithological variations on prospectivity.

Regional interpretation maps of widely spaced 2D seismic lines from reports were used, in conjunction with different
published literature for the basin, to understand the regional geological concepts and build a play fairway model. A facies
dependent reservoir porosity map was prepared based on a porosity-depth relationship for the different lithologies and later
improved with facies derived from the 3D seismic data. By evaluating the key elements of petroleum system possible
accumulation areas were identified within the basin. Depending on the geological scenario, different geological parameters
were transformed applying simple and complex transformations using a Play Chance Mapping tool to generate combined
Geological chance of success (COS) maps and Economical COS of each prospect along with their associated uncertainties,
through integrated prospect assessments. This Integrated Methodology minimizes the cost of exploration, especially related
to drilling and management of uncertainties. It serves as guide in acquiring the right acreage for right price at right time.

Introduction
Easy-to-access hydrocarbon resources have been mostly claimed in the past decades and the run for profitable deep-water and
unconventional plays is increasing worldwide. This has made ‘Exploration’ a highly competitive business, where informed
decision is required to be made within a quick timeframe.
To move into these high(er) risk geological environments explorationists need an easy, time saving and consistent approach to
understand the potential of play for assessing the geological chance-of-success (COS) and volumetric calculations for each
prospect in the play to take the best decision of acquiring acreage or for ranking the prospects to drill. This is a quick method to
update and refine the conceptual model with new data like additional seismic or well information, required to update the
understanding of sweet spot.
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The paper illustrates the utilization of a systematic petroleum system based screening approach (Bryant et. al, 2012) to derive
chance-of-success play maps in terms of source potential, reservoir quality, seal integrity, trap efficiency to screen the Makassar
Strait (Figure 1) are based on available public domain data and literature. The prospective areas were further studied in detail by
incorporating 3D seismic data to gain a better understanding of structural controls and lithological variations on the basis of
seismic attribute study.

Figure 1: Location of Study area, Makassar Strait, Indonesia

Geological and Exploration Background of the Study area

Over geological time the Makassar strait area had gone through alternating extension and compression, with alternate routes for
translation and frequent re-activation of old basement lineaments .After initial crustal extension opening of both the North and
South Makassar Straits in the mid Eocene, early phase Eocene horst and graben terrains were replaced by basinal sag sediments
during the subsequent Oligocene to Miocene era. During the subsequent Plio-Pleistocene, the Makassar Straits became
compressional as successive Australoid fragments collided with the south eastern corner of Sundaland. With massive
outbuilding of the Mahakam Delta during Miocene and Pliocene, considerable volumes of highly prospective lowstand turbidite
facies were debouched to Makassar Strait basin floor. These offer highly prospective turbidite reservoir objectives in the deep-
water domain.

The Kutai exploration and production province in the Makassar Straits is one of the most prolific hydrocarbon provinces in SE
Asia. Exploration has now been extended into the deeper-water domain of the Mahakam Delta. Several active petroleum
systems are present in the Makassar Straits deep-water exploration arena. Water depths in the region range from 200m at the
edge of the continental shelf to over 2200m in the abyssal plain (ISIS report). Wide range of depositional and structural styles
result in a kaleidoscope of lithologies, play types and exploration opportunities.

Figure 2: Play concept used in the study

This study has been carried away with the play concept of the Mid-Miocene source rocks with Late-Miocene reservoirs (Figure
2). Mid-Miocene consisted mainly of Type III source rocks with average TOC of 2 and HI of 200.

Data availability
As in most new venture/ exploration scenarios where data is very limited, the initial conceptual model was built on
understanding of the geological concept gathered over the area from different available literature and old multi-client reports,
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which was based on interpretation of widely spaced 2D seismic lines over the study area comprising of 85000 sq km in area
(Figure 3). Few published cross section, paleogeography maps, velocity maps were initially used to develop the conceptual
model. This model was further refined by incorporating the 3D Seismic data in the prospective area marked through the
initial conceptual model.

Figure 3: Data Coverage for the study Figure 4: Time maps created from published cross sections

Methodology and result

The study was conducted in two main parts. First a conceptual model was developed from available published literature and
digital live model was built to analyze the different play concepts to screen the entire area. Later based on the regional study
one of the potentially promising areas was studied in detail using seismic 3D data for better understanding of structural and
lithological variation.

In the first part of the study, the goal was to screen the entire area by analyzing four main elements of the Petroleum system:
Mid Miocene Source potential, Late Miocene Reservoir quality, Late Miocene Trap efficiency and the Seal integrity for the
sediment cover on top of Late Miocene reservoir. A digital geological model was built from analogous published maps and
sections, to carry out a systematic petroleum system based play evaluation (Neber et, al 2012). The available cross sections
and maps from literature (in image form) were geo-referenced, and the digital time structural maps of the major horizons
were created (Figure 4).

The project had no access to well data for depth domain conversion. Velocity maps from old reports which had some well
control were used to convert these time domain maps to depth domain. Facies maps of Mid Miocene source rocks and Late
Miocene reservoir rocks from published literature were also used to develop the geological conceptual model for the area
(Figure 4). These facies maps were used to derive the reservoir porosity map by using depth porosity relationship of the
different facies over the area (Figure 5). Similarly, seal integrity map was generated where uniform shale lithology was
considered for the area (Figure 6). The source rock maturation was analyzed using the various geochemistry parameters
mentioned earlier along with thermal gradient of 40 degC/km. With the given condition two main kitchen areas were
observed from the transformation ratio maps of the source rock (Figure 7). Using these four key elements of petroleum
system, a quick look, map based petroleum system charge modeling was run which shows some possible accumulations
within the study area. These were a good match with the existing known oil & gas fields published in the area, this augment
the confidence in the model (Figure 8).

Play Chance Mapping method (Bryant et. al 2012) was used to transform these geological parameters into Chance of Success
(COS) maps. For some geological parameters simple transformation was used while for others complex transformation were
used to develop the individual COS maps for all the elements considered which were later analyzed together to derive the
combined COS map with green indicating higher COS and red depicting lower COS (Figure 9). The workflow with chance of
success criteria had been established, so that it could be easily updated as soon as new data or maps become available.

The first part of the study described above was used to delineate areas with better exploration potential, marked with green
color in figure 9(d). In the second part of the study, a multi-client seismic 3D data (courtesy WesternGeco) was used to
further enhance the understanding of the structural trap and lithology within the high potential area as shown in Figure 10.
The interpretation carried out on the 3D seismic data had some good structural closer (Figure 11) in the new area of interest.
From the seismic attribute analysis a few geological features likes delta, turbidite channel flow etc were interpreted and were
incorporated with the previous regional study to refine the facies distribution for late Miocene reservoir (Figure 12). The
refined facies were further used to update the porosity map with the depth-porosity function (Figure 13).
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The COS map for the reservoir and subsequently the combined COS map for the play (Figure 14) was also updated with the
new detailed maps using the success criteria set initially. The updated maps now delineate the area of exploration potential
with higher confidence. The HC migration pathway and possible accumulation potential model were also updated with the
new data (Figure 15). Few prospects were analyzed in the integrated workflow (Neber et, al, 2012) to understand the
geological success of those prospect using the geological maps prepared from the available data and to quantify the
uncertainty and risk (Figure 15).

Figure 5: Reservoir facies distribution map from analogue data (left), derived porosity map (right)

Figure 6: Capillary entry pressure map of Seal Figure 7: Transformation ratio map of Source rock
SPE 166647 5

Figure 8: Accumulation from conceptual model (left) showing good match with existing fields (right)

(a) (b) (c) (d)

Figure 9: Chance of success (COS) maps of different petroleum system elements, Seal (a), Reservoir (b), Source (c) and the
combine COS map (d) showing potential areas with high COS which augments further detail exploration.
6 SPE 166647

New area of
interest after
screening

Seismic 3D
survey
boundary

Figure 10: New area of interest based on previous screening, and the boundary of seismic 3D for further study.

Figure 11: Structural trap potential from the interpretation of the 3D seismic data.
SPE 166647 7

(a) (b) (c)

Figure 12: Average negative amplitude map (a) extracted -900ms from late Miocene shows some deltaic deposits, whereas
the RMS amplitude map (b) extracted -900ms from late Miocene shows geomorphology like turbidite flow. The Palaeo facies
map derived from literature (shown in the onset) was updated with the new understanding from the seismic attributes (c).

Figure 13: The new facies map (left) for the Late Miocene reservoir was used to update the regional porosity map (right).
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Figure 14: Updated chance of success map for the play.

Figure 15: Updated accumulation and migration pathway model & Prospect Assessment with uncertainty for one of the
prospect.

Conclusions
In this Study a petroleum system based approach was carried out to screen Makassar Strait for exploration potential initially
based on available data on public domain. A methodology was put together to utilize published map or section from different
literature to develop a live digital model for initial assessment of chance of success. An integrated platform technology was
utilized to easily update the initial conceptual model with the new data, which was the seismic 3D data. The integrated
approach kept the maps alive inside the live model which could easily be updated with available new data to refine the play
fairway. The integrated approach also helped to understand the potential of each prospect and its associated risk.

Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank WesternGeco for providing their multi-client interpretation report and the 3D seismic data in
Makassar Strait also BPMigas and Schlumberger for permission and help to carry out the project. The authors also wish to
express our gratitude to colleagues Ian Bryant and Tom Levy for their input.
SPE 166647 9

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