Publications

Exploration of oil and gas is a high-risk business, therefore, a good and proper strategy for exploration must be well prepared to address the risk and ultimately find the main objective of commercially discovery. The exploration consists of several activities such as G&G studies, surveys (seismic and/or non-seismic) and drilling exploratory well(s). The well drilling is to prove the exploration concept associated with a petroleum system related to reservoir, trap, seal, and source. The highest risk in exploration is well drilling as it consumes the most exploration budget with low chance of success. Onshore West Papua (OWP) area, including Warim, is located adjacent to the Indonesia and Papua New Guinea (PNG) border. The area is categorized as very high-risk area for oil and gas exploration because geologically is not well understood, limited data, rough topography, no infrastucture, security and social issues. The OWP is located in the area of west extension of the central range Papua New Guinea consisting of fold-thrust belt (FTB) to the north and foreland to the south. The FTB area has elevations in the range between 400m to more than 4,000m, while the foreland area has elevations between 0m to 400m above mean sea level. Although exploration has been initiated since 1955, the OWP area is still considered under-explored as only about 15 exploratory wells drilled and around 260 lines or about 11,000km length of 2D seismic were acquired with no oil/gas fields discovery during 1955-1998 exploration period. In contrast, in the PNG area to the east several oil and gas fields had been discovered, developed and produced in both the FTB and foreland areas. Even though more seismic lines (1,300 lines; around 24,000km length) had been acquired, exploration activity in the PNG area is still used relatively limited 2D seismic data but more than 140 exploratory wells have been drilled. In general, OWP and PNG share the similiar geology as well as hydrocarbon system. Using PNG as an analog for OWP, it is fair to assume what was discovered in PNG may also exist in OWP. However, massive exploration activities are a must, in order to find commercial hydrocarbon accumulations in the area. This paper will discuss the exploration strategy that can be implemented in the OWP area by comparing the exploration results from the PNG area that have a similar geological setting, geographical condition and limited seismic data but different number of wells drilled.