Petroleum systems in rift basins – a collective approach inSoutheast Asian basins

Abstract

This paper synthesizes some of the main conclusions reached in a recent regional review of the Tertiary basins of Southeast Asia, carried out by Shell. Four distinctive types of petroleum systems, correlating with the four main stages of basin evolution (early to late syn-rift and early to late post-rift), are developed widely in the basins. These petroleum system types have characteristic interbedded environmentally controlled source, reservoir and seal lithofacies which, in combination with the structural trap style, determine the hydrocarbon habitat. Variations in the tectonostratigraphic evolution consequent on differences in, for example, basin palaeogeographical position and proximity to late Tertiary collision events, are reflected in differences in the representation of the four petroleum system types. In turn, this is reflected in the overall hydrocarbon volumes found, the average field sizes and the ratio of oil to gas. The recognition of analogous petroleum systems (‘petroleum system types’) and reservoir lithofacies play types in well-explored basins can facilitate prediction of hydrocarbon prospectivity in less well-known rift/post-rift basins and plays, and thereby contribute to future exploration evaluation in these provinces.

A new depositional and provenance model for the Tanjung Formation, Barito Basin, SE Kalimantan, Indonesia

“…Most of these examples have been dated using palynology and foraminifera, and missing from all of the assemblages are 'Indian' palynomorphs (Morley, 2000). Most of the sedimentary basins in the Sunda region began to form in the early Cenozoic (Doust and Sumner, 2007;Hall and Morley, 2004;Hamilton, 1979;Hutchison, 1989). The development of these basins allowed many lowland floral communities to flourish, resulting in widespread peat (and subsequent coal) development in numerous sedimentary successions that contain similar lithofacies to the Tanjung Formation.…”

“…The Barito Basin is one of numerous sedimentary basins in SE Asia which formed during the early Cenozoic (Doust and Sumner, 2007;Hall and Morley, 2004;Hamilton, 1979;Hutchison, 1989). Initially the basin formed by rifting and subsidence from Middle Eocene to Early Miocene.…”

Petroleum systems of Indonesia

“…The characteristics of the various basin types noted above, therefore, can be applied to the description and evaluation of portions of basins as much as to that of the basins as a whole. The basin families referred to are elements of a much larger system of similar basins, developed throughout the Tertiary of the Far East and SE Asia (Doust and Sumner, 2007).…”

Subsidence and uplift by slab-related mantle dynamics: a driving mechanism for the Late Cretaceous and Cenozoic evolution of continental SE Asia?

“…African, Australian, Baltic Canadian shields) of stability (e.g. Hall & Morley 2004;Hyndman et al 2005;Currie & Hyndman 2006;Hall 2009), and exhibits high heat flow (Doust & Sumner 2007;Hall 2009) and low seismic velocities in the lithosphere and asthenosphere (e.g. Widiyantoro & van der Hilst 1997;Bijwaard et al 1998;Ritsema & van Heijst 2000).…”