New Perspective of Mesozoic Hydrocarbon Prospectivity Within West Timor

Abstract

Compared to the success of Mesozoic play in Westralian Superbasin (WASB), the lack of hydrocarbon discovery in West Timor within Timor Trough and North West Shelf Australia is still an enigma. The West Timor is still frontier petroleum province with problems in uncertainties of working petroleum system play as well as the hydrocarbon prospectivity. This paper tries to approach this issue by integrating of fieldwork data with published well data and offshore seismic data from recent publication to re-evaluating potential hydrocarbon prospectivity in this area. Using the dataset, this study identifies structural framework across West Timor Island and offshore area, as well as potential petroleum system plays including source rock, reservoir presence and trap configuration. The results of this study identify two potential petroleum province region including Timor deformation front and Australian passive continental margin. Within these areas, three main plays based on structural configuration were identified which are fold related fault, sub-thrust, and tilted fault block. Reservoir targets for these main plays are Jurassic sequences including sandstone of the Early-Middle Jurassic of Plover equivalent and Late Triassic Malita equivalent with seal rock including Early-Middle Jurassic shale of Wai Lui Formation and Early Cretaceous shale interval. These plays are expected to be charged from source rock interval of Triassic Formation. The novelty of hydrocarbon prospectivity in this study will guide exploration screening of petroleum system analysis in West Timor area where current play analysis has not been tested yet.