Resolving fault shadow problems in Irian Jaya (Indonesia) using prestack depth migration

Abstract

Irian Jaya, which forms the western half of the former Papua New Guinea island, is about 300 miles north of the Australian coastline. It is believed that the island has a good petroleum resource base, but it remains largely underexplored because of its very complex geology and limited accessible information. E&P activities in the last five years, however, suggest that companies are willing to take the risk. Recent structural and stratigraphic discoveries were made in the northwest corridor of the island, such as the giant Tangguh gas field in 1997 (∼14 trillion cubic feet) in Bintuni Basin and a commercial oil field in Salawati Basin (Figure 1).