THE TECTONIC SETTING OF SEDIMENTARY BASINS OF EASTERN INDONESIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR HYDROCARBON PROSPECTIVITY

Abstract

The region east of the Sunda Craton, in Indonesia, formed during the past 50 million years as a consequence of interaction between the Southeast Asia, India–Australia and Philippine plates. These interactions were initially dominated by oceanic plate convergence but since the Miocene the overall northward movement of the India–Australia Plate, and with it the Australian continent, has led increasingly to convergence between oceanic and continental plates. The result has been the creation of a wide range of tectonic regimes and the development of twenty-three major sedimentary basins.

Many of these basins exhibit indications of hydrocarbons, but most are frontier basins; several have not yet been drilled and only three have commercial production of oil. Gas production may be feasible soon in one other basin.

The preferential occurrence of hydrocarbons in Southeast Asian basins of certain tectonic settings provides a basis for ranking the Eastern Indonesian basins. Seven distinct tectonic settings are represented. The foreland/rifted basins underlain by crust of continental affinity are considered to have the greatest hydrocarbon prospectivity whereas the fore-arc basins bordering the Celebes Basin and Molucca Plate are considered to have the least prospectivity.