Prospectivity Analysis Using Value Engineering

FRANSISCUS, SINARNO, Arco, Indonesia, Jakarta, Indonesia, and MARIA R. NELLIA,* Mobil Oil Indonesia Inc., Jakarta, Indonesia

The low success rates for finding oil and gas discourages investment in oil and gas business; therefore, a good knowledge of uncertainty and risk is needed to encourage investors. Recent uncertainty and risk analysis methods take into account geological aspects only, and most of them use probability distribution, which incorporate many generalities.

This problem can be resolved by integrating all the necessary information (i.e., geology, geography, infrastructure, and economics) and comparing one exploration area with another area without ever using any probability distribution. One method that can be used for this purpose is value engineering. Value engineering is a scientific method used to describe and understand a system (in this case, an exploration area). The main power of this method is the division of the system into its functional components. The system is divided into several smaller components with division continuing until the last components really represent only one function. These functional components are compared for one area to another. The comparison results are then combined according to their groups, until th y form the system. Since the units of the components are not the same, the functional components are translated into a standard value. Weighting factors are assigned for each component to reflect the degree of importance of the components in the system. Consistency of the valuation and weighting factor assignment are checked using method developed by Saaty. The final result is the prospectivity index of the areas and can be used to compare the prospectivity of the areas.

To reduce the effect of subjectivity, sensitivity analysis can be performed by changing one or several value and/or the weighting factor of one or several components.

AAPG Search and Discovery Article #91007© 1991 AAPG International Conference, London, England, September 29-October 2, 1991 (2009)