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Foldbelt Exploration Play in East Papua, Indonesia

Conference Paper · September 2017

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PROCEEDINGS
JOINT CONVENTION MALANG 2017, HAGI – IAGI – IAFMI- IATMI (JCM 2017)
Ijen Suites Hotel, Malang, September 25 – 28, 2017
Foldbelt Exploration Play in East Papua, Indonesia
RM Iman Argakoesoemah
PTTEP Indonesia
Abstract
Papua Fold and Thrust Belt (Papua FTB) in East Papua
Island, Indonesia, remains under-explored as only few
wells have been drilled in this thrust belt. Papua FTB
extends toward east across the international border between
Indonesia and Papua New Guinea and merges with Papua
New Guinea Fold and Thrust Belt (PNG FTB). Several
stacked sediments of the Paleozoic to Late Tertiary sections
could be well-developed within the external and internal
thrust sheets.
The active petroleum system has been proven present in the
Mesozoic section which some oil was identified in Cross
Catalina-1 and hydrocarbon flowed in Kau-2 wells. The
traps are mainly fold and thrust structures of thin-skinned
deformation style and those associated with the foldbelt
development. The main reservoir objectives are Early
Cretaceous (Valanginian) Woniwogi, Early Cretaceous
(Berriasian) Toro Sandstones, and Late Jurassic (Tithonian)
Kopai Sandstone. The last two reservoirs are very
productive in Papua New Guinea along PNG FTB. The
primary seals are provided by thick shale of the Late
Cretaceous Piniya Formation besides intra-formational
shale of the Early Cretaceous to Late Jurassic sections. Two
nearby petroleum basins: Akimeugah Basin in the west and
Kau-Strickland Basin in the east are considered to be the
appropriate kitchens for the play.
Introduction
Papua FTB extends to the west-east direction until the
international border between Indonesia and Papua New
Guinea (PNG), and then it changes to the northwest-
southeast direction near the border and further east into
Papua New Guinea, Figure 1. At the surface, this FTB is
approximately up to 150 km wide and 700 km long with
several elevation peaks of 4-5 km high.
The foldbelt exploration play in Papua FTB is attractive
and has a proven, active petroleum system as indicated by
some exploration wells drilled in late 1990s. A total of
seven wells were drilled by Conoco during mid 1980s to
late 1990s. The wells are Noordwest-1 (1985), Sande-1
(1990), Cross Catalina-1 (1990), Digul-1 (1993), Kariem-1
(1997), Kau-1 (1997), and Kau-2 (1998). Cross Catalina-1
well encountered 167 feet of oil column with low effective
porosity of 8% in the Early Cretaceous Woniwogi
Sandstone. Kau-2 well, near the border with PNG flowed
55 BOPD of 47° API with minor gas from the Late Jurassic
(Tithonian) Sandstones (Kendrick and Hill, 2001). This
Tithonian Sandstone is likely equal to the P’nyang, Hedinia
and/or Iagifu Sandstones, Figure 2.
Current hydrocarbon production in Papua New Guinea
relies on the exploration and production activities in their
PNG FTB. The gas, oil, and condensate reserves in PNG
FTB are mainly in this center of the thrust belt around the
Kutubu pools consisting of Iagifu, Hedinia, Usano, and
Agogo Fields. Many other gas and condensate fields have
been discovered in the foreland area immediately to the
south of the thrust front, but have not yet been produced.
This paper briefly reviews the foldbelt exploration play and
its petroleum system in East Papua FTB with some
examples discovered in Papua New Guinea for analog.
Brief Petroleum System of Foldbelt Exploration Play
Papua FTB was started to develop in Late Miocene to
Pliocene (Dow and Sukamto, 1984; Hill and Gleadow,
1989; Davies, 2012; Baldwin et al., 2012), but some other
researchers believed that the initiation occurred slightly
earlier. Structurally, the western part of Papua FTB is a
complex thin-skinned fold and thrust belt involving the
Paleozoic to Late Tertiary sections.
The trap variation in this foldbelt play is heavily related to
the fold and thrust structures and those associated with the
foldbelt. Figure 3 is an interpreted unbalanced geological
cross-section across Papua FTB showing possible
complexity of the core of the external and internal thrust
sheets. The uncertainty of balanced cross-section remains
high since there is no seismic line available across the
thrust belt to control the interpretation. This is because of
heavy rugged terrain topography, and dense of virgin
tropical forest. Another possible interpretation is simple
thrust sheets with basement involved as shown by Kendrick
and Hill (2001), Figure 4.
In contrast, there are many seismic lines available across
PNG FTB. The surface has less rugged terrain and
accessible for seismic acquisition operation. The geological
PROCEEDINGS
JOINT CONVENTION MALANG 2017, HAGI – IAGI – IAFMI- IATMI (JCM 2017)
Ijen Suites Hotel, Malang, September 25 – 28, 2017

Figure 1. Foldbelt exploration play along Papua FTB extends to the east across the international border between Indonesia and
Papua New Guinea (PNG) and merges with PNG FTB. The Akimeugah and Kau-Strickland Basins are the main kitchens for
hydrocarbon to generate and migrate into the foldbelt play in the north.

Figure 2. Middle Jurassic to Early Cretaceous general stratigraphy in PNG showing the stratigraphic position and relative age of
the Toro Sandstone in East Papua. The Tithonian Kopai Sandstone is time equivalent to sandstones of the P’nyang, Hedinia and
Iagifu (Bidgood et al, 2015).
PROCEEDINGS
JOINT CONVENTION MALANG 2017, HAGI – IAGI – IAFMI- IATMI (JCM 2017)
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Figure 3. Generalized and unbalanced geological cross-section showing complex thin-skinned deformation style of Papua FTB
after integrating geological fieldwork results and Synthetic Aperture Radar (Granath and Argakoesoemah, 1989).

Figure 4. A regional geological cross-section across Papua FTB showing the involvement of both thin-skinned and thick-skinned
structural development (Kendrick and Hill, 2001; Hill et al., 2004).
PROCEEDINGS
JOINT CONVENTION MALANG 2017, HAGI – IAGI – IAFMI- IATMI (JCM 2017)
Ijen Suites Hotel, Malang, September 25 – 28, 2017

Figure 5. Interpretation of the structural development of the Kutubu pool showing Hedinia and Iagifu anticlines (Hill et al., 2015).
PROCEEDINGS
JOINT CONVENTION MALANG 2017, HAGI – IAGI – IAFMI- IATMI (JCM 2017)
Ijen Suites Hotel, Malang, September 25 – 28, 2017
cross-sections across PNG FTB are controlled by seismic
lines and clearly show the presence of thick-skinned,
basement involved style of deformation. One of the
reconstructions with structural development across Hedinia
and Iagifu Gas Fields is shown in Figure 5 (Hill et al.,
2015).
The reservoir objectives along Papua FTB are the Early
Cretaceous (Valanginian) Woniwogi and (Berriasian) Toro
Sandstones, and Late Jurassic (Tithonian) Kopai Sandstone.
The Toro and Kopai Sandstones are not present in the
western part of the thrust belt due to non-deposition or
erosion, but both are well-developed to the east and across
the border into PNG FTB. The Woniwogi Sandstone is the
only reservoir target in the western part of Papua FTB
which shaled-out to the east towards PNG.
A detailed geological fieldwork was conducted in the
Waghete area immediately to the east of the Lorentz
National Park, Figure 1, by Irian Jaya Geological Mapping
Project (IJGMP), a collaborative project between the
Indonesian Geological Research and Development Centre
(GRDC) and Australian Bureau of Mineral Resources
(BMR) in 1980 (Panggabean and Hakim, 1986). As part of
the Kembelangan Group, the Woniwogi Sandstone
described in the outcrops is well-bedded to massive
glauconitic orthoquartzite with minor siltstone and thinly
bedded black calcareous mudstone near the top. The
porosity could range from 5 to 20 % with an average of
10% and poor to fair permeability ((Panggabean and
Hakim, 1986). The Toro Sandstone is cropped out in the
western part of Papua New Guinea and has also been
encountered by wells drilled in the region. The Toro
Sandstone is interpreted as the development of prograding
sequence of sandstone and shale as the results of the Early
Cretaceous regression of the Gondwana passive margin.
Similarly, the Late Jurassic (Tithonian) Sandstone also
indicates the presence of shallow marine sandstone
sequence deposition prograded towards northeast into
Papua New Guinea. The seal is provided by the regional,
thick shales of the Piniya Formation and/or intra-
formational shales of the Late Jurassic and Early
Cretaceous section.
Note on Lorentz National Park:
Lorentz National Park is located in the center part of
Akimeugah Basin and extends to the north into the
southern part of Papua FTB. The outline is shown and
marked in blue, Figure 1. It should be noted that any
hydrocarbon exploration prospects present within the
Lorentz National Park area are not accessible for further
exploration.
Discussions
Some discussions are as follow:
(1) There is lack of infrastructure in the onshore East
Papua area over Papua FTB due to heavy, rugged
terrain covered by dense tropical forest. These
surface and geological conditions have resulted in
difficulties to acquire sufficient geological and
geophysical data required for hydrocarbon
exploration. However, many seismic lines were shot
and exploration drilling operations were successfully
conducted immediately to the south of the thrust
front where less severe thrust sheets are present.
(2) The stratigraphy within the external and internal
thrust sheet cores could be complex and contain
stacked, thrusted Paleozoic to Late Tertiary sections.
This uncertainty is caused by lack of seismic controls
to the geological model of the thrust belt. By
referring to PNG FTB, a simple geological section of
the thrust belt with basement involved could exist
along the Papua FTB. This has increased the
attractiveness of the foldbelt exploration play in the
region.
(3) Active petroleum system along Papua FTB has been
proven by Cross Catalina-1 in the west and Kau-2 in
the east. The Akimeugah and Kau-Strickland Basins
are the most likely potential kitchens for hydrocarbon
to migrate to the foldbelt play and other plays in East
Papua.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank Management of PTTEP
Indonesia, Ditjen Migas, and SKK Migas for permission to
publish this paper. I thank my colleague Muhammad Fikry
Shahab, Geologist in PTTEP Indonesia, to help generate
some figures through Geographic Information System
(GIS) and provided some reading materials.
References
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Davies, H.L., 2012, The geology of New Guinea – the
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 PROCEEDINGS
JOINT CONVENTION MALANG 2017, HAGI – IAGI – IAFMI- IATMI (JCM 2017)
Ijen Suites Hotel, Malang, September 25 – 28, 2017

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