--> ABSTRACT: Preliminary Petroleum Resource Estimates for Indonesia, by John Kingston; #91043 (2011)

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Preliminary Petroleum Resource Estimates for Indonesia

John Kingston

Of about 44 sedimentary basins along the 2,900 mi east-west extent of Indonesia, 13 basins are believed to contain practically all of Indonesia's future petroleum resources. Western Indonesia, underlain by the Asian (Sunda) continental block, comprises the Sumatra-Java archipelago, the island of Kalimantan, and the intervening Sunda Shelf. This area contains almost all of the Indonesian petroleum reserves, and its exploration has reached early maturity. The reserves are concentrated in the five larger inner-arc basins of the archipelago and in the three rifted basins of the Kalimantan-Sunda Shelf area. Eastern Indonesia is essentially Irian Jaya (western New Guinea) and the adjoining shelf. The north edge of the Australian-New Guinea continental block has been successively rifted, compressed, and wrenched along its northern boundary with the Pacific plate. Exploration of the three major basins in this tectonic zone is still in an early stage.

Preliminary most-likely estimates of the undiscovered recoverable petroleum resources of Indonesia are approximately 7 billion bbl of oil and 70 tcf of gas (in addition to an estimated 70 tcf of discovered gas not yet assigned to reserves).

More than 90% of the undiscovered petroleum resources are in western Indonesia, but the best chances for unknown giant discoveries may be in the frontier Irian Jaya of eastern Indonesia.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91043©1986 AAPG Annual Convention, Atlanta, Georgia, June 15-18, 1986.