IPA, 2011 - 34th Annual Convention Proceedings, 2010

IPA10-G-183

PROCEEDINGS, INDONESIAN PETROLEUM ASSOCIATION

Thirty-Fourth Annual Convention & Exhibition, May 2010
NATURALLY FRACTURED BASEMENT RESERVOIRS: USING SOUTH SUMATRA TO
CHARACTERIZE THE CHALLENGES OF EXPLORING AND EXPLOITING FRACTURE
BASEMENT RESERVOIRS
Joel Guttormsen*

ABSTRACT
Naturally fractured reservoirs have attracted an
increased interest of exploration and production in
recent years. Fractured Basement reservoirs
provide a challenging environment to properly
characterize. The term basement however, defines
not just a single homogenous rock type, but a
complex interplay of lithologies often genetically
very different in origin. Hydrocarbon production
from Pre-Tertiary rock is exceptional in Southeast
Asia, oil fields in fractured basement are known in
Indonesia. Indonesia provides a wide variety of
basement reservoir lithologies that range from felsic
intrusives to carbonate metasediments. Indonesian
basement units are comprised of andesites, granites
(granodiorites through monzonites), basaltic dikes,
marbles, limestones, quartzites, conglomerates, and
phyllites. Granites are dominated by SII intrusives
and violent hydrothermal histories have overprinted
many of the original basement rock.
Exploitation of these reservoirs requires more then
just drilling a basement high. It involves a
carefully thought out plan of execution in order to
optimize the intersection of breccias and associated
fracture sets.
Note Breccias are the poorest
understood component of fractured reservoirs due to
their nature (washouted zones often with drilling
losses). Southern Sumatra characterizes the global
fractured basement challenges.
Understanding fact from fiction is critical in dealing
with fractured basement reservoirs.
Identifying
data that is helpful in understanding these unique
reservoirs is important. Force fitting conventional
analytical techniques to these reservoirs may result
in a gross miss-statement of resources. Structural
domains, principle stress (including local stress
fields), and mechanical stratigraphy have to be
considered in exploration and development of these
fields. Data components such as gas shows, gas
ratios, mud losses, core, rate of penetration petro*

ConocoPhillips (Grissik) Ltd.

physical and well bore temperature are fundamental

to evaluate with a perspective of a fracture reservoir.
Outcrop provides significant insight to the problem
and solutions with respect to these reservoirs.
This paper will focus on the data used to understand
the South Sumatra fracture basement reservoirs.
Examples of structural domains integrated with
lithologies are used to discuss the idiosyncrasies of
dealing with fractured reservoir data. Furthermore
a brief discussion related to petrophysical schemes
related to log data is addressed and finally modeling
strategies are summarized for their strengths and
weakness.
INTRODUCTION
The Southern Sumatra Basin provides the setting
for some of the most complex structural basement
plays in the world.
Combinations of brittle
lithologies and poly-phased tectonics created a
number of world class reservoirs. The documented
world class fields in the Southern Sumatra Basin are
the Suban, Sumpal, and Dayung gas accumulations.
In addition there are a number of other discoveries
such as Bungin, Bungkal, and Rayun that may yet
prove to be world class (Wu 2001) (Guttormsen
2009)(Wade 2008)(Sagita 2008).
Fractured basement reservoirs occur in more then
25 basins in the world and in over 30 countries
(Batchelor-2005). The major fracture basement
productive basins are the Cuulong Basin, Vietnam
(Tham 2003)(Hung 2004) and Southern Sumatra
Basin, Indonesia (Achdiat 2008) (Sagita 2008).
Other emerging significant basins are in Yemen,
China, and India.
Not all fractured basements are created the same.
Most explorers use the term basement for a range of
intrusive and extrusive igneous and metamorphic
rocks either beneath the Cambrian section or lying
beneath an unconformity at the base of a
sedimentary sequence (Guttormsen 2008). That