|
 INDONESIA
Southeast Asia
Indonesia is an archipelago of over 13,000 islands,
stretching from Asia to Australasia and including the large islands of
Java and Sumatra as well as much of Borneo (called Kalimantan in its
largest Indonesian sector).
 Indonesia
has had a long oil and gas history, being the birthplace of Royal
Dutch/Shell, with its early fields onshore Borneo. Sumatra, however, has
the largest onshore oil fields, Duri and Minas, found in the 1940s but
not developed until after WW2. The country joined OPEC in 1962 and
nationalised its oil industry in 1965 with the creation of the state
company, Pertamina. Pertamina entered into production-sharing contracts
with foreign companies, a system that has spread worldwide.
Most oil and gas production comes from Tertiary basins
onshore northern Sumatra, onshore and offshore Java, in the Natuna Sea,
onshore and offshore east Kalimantan, onshore Papua (formerly Irian
Jaya) and locally new prospects offshore Papua. The onshore regions,
which have yielded oil since the 1890s, are well explored and exploited,
and considerable effort has gone into EOR in many of the old fields.
Only the largely neglected Cepu area in central Java is likely to yield
significant oil in the future.
 Offshore: Offshore oil production began in 1971
from the Cinta and Ardjuna fields in West Java and this region is still
the most important offshore producer, albeit in decline. Most of the
rest comes from western Indonesia, over the well-explored shallow water
shelf of the Java and South China Seas, geologically known as the Sunda
shelf. The producing basins adjacent to the Malacca Strait, onshore
Sumatra, peter out offshore and, despite numerous exploration wells only
a few fields have been developed in these waters in the nearshore
swamps.
Conversely the narrow Makassar Strait off eastern
Kalimantan, forming the north-south divide between western and eastern
Indonesia, is the site of important deepwater discoveries as well as
shallow water fields in the Kutei basin.
In eastern Indonesia part of the offshore area underlies
the shallow water Arafura Sea, which is geologically within the
Australian continent, but this area appears to have limited potential.
The remainder of Eastern Indonesia is underlain mostly by high-risk
deepwater basins within the Celebes, Moluccan, Banda and Flores Seas as
well as along the country’s southern border adjacent to the Indian
Ocean. The geology of these regions also appears unfavourable,
particularly for reservoirs.
The greatest area of offshore oil production in Indonesia
is off West Java, dating back to the offshore NW Java PSC signed by Arco
in 1967 and the offshore SE Sumatra PSC signed by IIAPCO in 1968.
Production began in 1971 and around 70 oil and gas fields and satellites
produce from these two areas, the largest holding over a hundred mm Bbls
(for example Intan, Indri, Widuri and Bima), the smallest only around 2
mm Bbls, developed with eight or fewer wells from caisson platforms.
In 1993 a gas development project was completed
delivering around 3.6 Bcm per year to power plants serving Jakarta.
However, production from West Java continues to decline.
In the East Java Sea Arco (now BP) began producing the 40
Bcm Pagerungan gas field in the Kangean block in 1993. Around 3.6 Bcm
per year is delivered by pipeline to Surabaya. Other smaller gas fields
west of Kangean Island, including Terang, Sirasun and Kangean West, can
utilise Pagerungan facilities.
There are also a series of small oil and gas fields
northwest of Madura Island with fractured carbonate reservoirs and
modest output. The first discovery in this region was in 1970, later
developed as the Camar field in 1991 (Camar was suspended in 1994, then
intermittently produced at around 2,000 Bbls per day). The Poleng field
was discovered in 1972 and brought onstream in 1976, but abandoned in
1978. The KE2 field was discovered in 1978. A series of small finds were
made in the 1980s and the KE5 gas field was brought onstream in 1993.
Small discoveries with marginal commerciality have continued to the
present day.
Conoco’s Udang field in the east of Natuna, commenced
production in 1980, reaching peak output from 2 platforms in 1981 at
36,000 Bbls per day but it has since been abandoned. ConocoPhillips
produces from 5 fields in the Natuna Sea and has 16 gas fields in
various stages of development. The Belanak field came onstream in late
2004 using an FPSO. In other blocks to the north the Kakap group of
fields began oil production in 1988 and, near the Malaysian border, the
Anoa field came onstream in 1991, peaking at 20,000 Bbls per day in 1992
before declining rapidly.
The West Natuna Group of companies first exported
offshore gas via pipeline to Singapore in 2001, where it is used for
electricity generation and to diversify supply. The 640 km Natuna
pipeline is one of the longest subsea gas pipelines in the world
delivering 3.4 Bcm per year. The line takes gas from Anoa, Kakap,
Belida, Buntal, Tembang and Belanak. Pipeline capacity with compression
could reach 10 Bcm per year so considerable growth is possible.
Malaysia also began importing gas from the Natuna Sea in
mid 2003 and pipeline proposals that would link East Natuna with Sarawak
and the Phillipines are under consideration, but the high financing
costs and security concerns make the project unlikely in the medium
term.
ExxonMobil owns the huge 1.3 Tcm Natuna D Alpha gas
discovery in the East Natuna Sea near to the Malaysian border.
Discovered in 1973 by Agip it has never been developed due to its
remoteness and high CO2 volumes.
The Kutei basin in the Makassar Strait between Kalimantan
and Sulawesi is the most active area of Indonesia. Unocal is the main
operator with ten offshore oil and gas fields in the basin, the largest
being Attaka discovered in 1970 and onstream in 1972 reaching peak
production of 100,000 Bbls per day in the late 1970s. Unocal has been
exploring in seven new blocks, including 3 in deep waters, since 1997.
Total also operates shallow water oil fields in the
delta. Bekapai, discovered in 1972, peaked at 55,000 Bbls per day in the
late 1970s. Since early 1998 Unocal has made a series of deep water
discoveries, the first of which was the 720 mm Bbl West Seno field in
the Makassar Strait PSC and the first deepwater development in
Indonesia. The field lies around 190 kms northeast of Balikpapan in
water depths of approximately 975 m. Along with the smaller Merah Besar
field in this area development is proceeding using lightweight TLPs and
barge-mounted production facilities.
First production from 5 wells in West Seno was achieved
in August 2003. Unocal are also developing the Gendalo deepwater gas
field in the Ganal PSC. The gas will be used in the Bontang LNG plant to
service existing and new contracts. The Gula oil and gas field, also
located in the Ganal PSC area in around 1,800 m of water, will be
developed subsequently. In the Rapak PSC the Gehem oil and gas field in
around 1,750 m of water was discovered in 2003 and is due for a joint
development with the Ranggas oil and gas field, 3 kms away in 1,650 m of
water.
Eastern Indonesia covers all those islands and seas lying
east of the Makassar Strait, including Sulawesi, Ceram and Papua. The
region has a complex geological history, in which fragments of the
Australian continent are caught up in the Asian tectonic plate. For many
years the focus of Indonesian exploration has been on these frontier,
remote regions but there have been few successes and only two areas
produce relatively small volumes of oil from onshore Ceram and from
onshore western Papua.
On Ceram small volumes of oil have been produced from the
Bula basin for many years and its offshore extension is being evaluated.
Nexen drilled two offshore wells without success in 2002 and prospects
for commercial fields look remote. Similarly, there has been onshore oil
production from the Salawati basin in Papua for many years.
However, a giant offshore gas field, Tangguh, containing
around 410 Bcm of dry gas, was discovered by Arco in September 1997 in
the Berau-Bintuni Bay region of Teluk Bintuni Regency and is operated by
BP. Although the possibility of large gas resources in this area had
been realised for some time it is only in the last 2 years that
commercialisation has been possible.
Other offshore areas in eastern Indonesia include the
Arafura Sea (part of the Australian continental shelf), the Celebes,
Moluccan, Banda and Flores Seas and also the southern border with the
Indian Ocean, which extends into western Indonesia south of Java and
Sumatra. A number of wells have been drilled in these seas but a viable
petroleum system has not been found. Unfortunately there are no direct
corollaries with the Makassar Strait over the widespread deep water
areas. Whereas the deep water tracts of West Africa and the Gulf of
Mexico are underlain by rifts containing rich source-rocks, in Indonesia
they are confined to delta-fronts that are lean and gassy.
|
Back to ASIA-PACIFIC