Publications

The Paleocene basin-floor fan play in the Arafura area is a new play identified during recent study. The play has never been tested nor become an exploration objective in this area. The fan was developed as a low stand stratigraphic sequence and is inferred to occur during a brief sea level drop within the interval of Paleogene. The Arafura area is the northern extension of the Australian continent and is under-explored. The area has been explored since the 1970’s when Dutch drilled several onshore wells. However, exploration success was not made until the discovery of Tangguh fields in Bintuni Basin and later in 2000 when Inpex discovered Abadi field in the offshore Arafura Sea. Such discoveries proved the extent of the Jurassic Plover sandstone play to the north. The multi-TCF gas field of this play has been discovered earlier in the offshore Northwest Australia. This paper is aimed to describe the Paleocene basin-floor fan and its potential as a future exploration target. The equivalent age of turbidite sequence is found at Wiriagar Deep field in Bintuni Basin. The field contains multi TCF gas in turbidite sandstones reservoir and is now being developed as part of Tangguh Train 3 project. The locality of the Paleocene basin-floor fan in the Arafura Sea is at the surrounding of the Abadi field at around 50-70 kilometres to the north, in the area called the Sindoro Embayment. Its presence is recognized by several regional 2D seismic lines at very sparse distance, 20-30 km density. Previous studies have identified the presence of this stratigraphic succession, but it has not been identified as new potential play. The proven Mid-Jurassic shallow marine Plover sandstones remain as an attractive play for exploration in this area and are believed to contain giant yet-to-find. Another prospective play is the Mid-Miocene carbonate around the Aru Trough area. The Sindoro Embayment is potentially a prospective area with multiple stratigraphic targets. 3D seismic is required to help in defining drillable prospects.