Publications

West Natuna Basin (WNB) is located in the centre of Sunda Shelf in South China Sea; bordered by the Sunda Shelf's basement to the south, the Natuna Arch to the east, and the Khorat Swell to the north. Tectonic evolution of the WNB has imparted a complex structural history of extension, compression and wrenching related to Cenozoic regional tectonic events, for which the structural evolution reflects a history of Late Eocene-Early Oligocene rifting and Middle-Late Miocene inversion. The regional strike-slip movement that associates to the Three Pagodas Fault System has long been recognised at WNB. However, the understanding of this strike-slip behaviour has not previously been investigated despite its important role in reservoir mapping. This study aims to demonstrate how new approaches of seismic attributes analysis combined with structural evolution through palinspastic reconstruction will define the structural geometry as a key point for fault relationship in the production field. Structure map and cross section are generated by integrating wells data and 3D seismic to identify structural trends. Seismic low frequency magnitude has been generated as an attribute to define faults through Spectral Decomposition method. As the faults feature on the seismic are more related to low or even absent of energy, these attributes provide robust attributes to identify four morphology in study area that represent different structural geometry and history. Seismic interpretation shows the structure commences in the early part of the Late Eocene that developed as NE-SW rifting. The rifting is initiated due to creation of pull-apart basins, as part of the WNW-ESE sinistral strike-slip fault development. The major sinistral strike-slip development was accommodated by collision of India that causes onset of rotation of Sundaland. In relation to the oblique NNE-SSW compression, Middle-Late Miocene inversion follows the post-rift deformation. This condition accommodates the development of NW-SE right lateral strike-slip on the marginal fault and result in N-S trending horsetail structure development that plays a role as an essential structure for reservoir trap. This research verifies that the combination between recent re-evaluations of the 3D seismic and its attributes can identify more detailed fault positions to generate better definitions of fault patterns. Therefore, palinspastic restoration becomes one of the classic approaches that brings further comprehension of the fault pattern’s structural evolutions, which leads to the site-development and production’s improvements.