Exploration Challenges And Opportunities In Deep Water Makassar Strait Basins, Indonesia : Review of Carbonate Play Based On Sequence Stratigraphy And Seismic Characterization

This evaluation is made following the unsuccessful of six exploration wells drilling in the deepwater of Makassar Strait. The geological factor of this unsuccessful result is in interpreting the presence of reservoir and source rock, in particular: misinterpretation of age of the carbonate reservoirs in the seismic correlation and less attention on the detail of the seismic characters differences of the carbonate developed on the horst structures. Here we discussed the cause of the failure in our review study of the regional geology based on sequence stratigraphy concept, carbonate facies model, and re-identification of seismic character of the carbonate reservoir target based on drilled wells data. The goal of this evaluation study is to analyze in general and regional perspectives, to describe an overview of the petroleum system model which is different from the previous interpretation. Unsuccessful of six expensive exploration wells in the deep water is a bit much influence to the activities of exploration in the South Makassar Basin. Each operator in the contract areas in this area need to evaluate the petroleum system more dtail based on those drilling results prior to drilling. This paper is to demonstrate the exploration opportunities and challenges in an effort to discover hydrocarbons in the deep water Makassar Strait Basins.