Going Deeper: Fractured Basement Mapping in North Sumatera Basin using
Seismic Multi-Attribute Analysis
Fitriyanda Herawan1, Raysita Galuh Dwi Jayanti1, I Putu Wika Wiguna2, and Fanny Rosdiawan1
1
Exploration Department, PT Pertamina Hulu Energi, Jakarta 12430, Indonesia
2
Subsurface Departement, PT PHE NSO, Jakarta 12430, Indonesia
ABSTRACT
North Sumatera Offshore (NSO) Block main
producer formation (Malacca Formation) has
been overexplored throughout the last 50 years.
Reffering to it, new play concept understanding
is needed to unfold deeper exploration
opportunity in this area spesifically basement.
Basement in NSB block (neighborhood block) is
metasediment aged carboniferous permian.
This basement in NSO Block facing right in
front of sub basin which expected to become
source rock pod. However, since the original
seismic acquisition and processing objective is
not basement, the signal bandwith in the area is
relatively low with high S/N ratio, resulting
unoptimized reservoir characterization due to
low seismic resolution. Furthermore, this
basement reservoir characterization will rely
solely in seismic data and regional geology
knowledge in the area because there are still no
well data reached basement.
This paper will show post processing seismic
conditioning and seismic attribute workflow
done use for indicating the presence of fracture
as a micro discontinuity in basement rock,
regardless less favorable seismic data. The
product of seismic attribute has successfully
detected fracture occurence in the area resulting
an almost North-South fracture orientation
appearance. The result after doing suggested
workflow are then compared to original seismic,
showing significant improvement in basement
fractured interpretation.
Keywords: basement fracture, NSO Block,
seismic attribute
INTRODUCTION
Basement definition varies widely depending on
specific basement in the area. But mostly used
definition follows that of Landes (1960):
basement rocks are considered as any
metamorphic or igneous rocks (regardless of
age) which are unconformably overlain by a
sedimentary sequence
For periods of time in oil and gas exploration,
basements are always considered as a non
economics formation, thus every drilling tend to
be terminated when reaching the basement.
Along with significant oil and gas discovery in
Basement, it then considered as a favorable
exploration objective. In Indonesia, Beruk
Northeast Field and Tanjung Field are example
of field produced from basement.
One of the secondary porosity developed in
Basement is fracture which would be difficult to
described due to its heterogenity and complexity.
Seismic data is one of the tool used to map
fracture occurence. However, since the original
seismic acquisition and processing objective is
not basement, the signal bandwith in the area is
relatively low with high S/N ratio, resulting
unoptimized reservoir characterization due to
low seismic resolution
Nowadays, the fracture presence, network, and
orientation could be detected by using seismic
attribute. Seismic attribute is grouped into two
classes; physical attribute and geometric
attribute. Geometric attributes such as dip, Fm.), black shales, phyllites, and conglomeratic
azimuth, curvature, coherence , variance, chaos greywacke (Permian Kruet Fm.)
and ant attributes enhances the visibility of the
geometrical characteristics or shape of seismic
reflectors, while physical attributes such as DATA AND METHOD
amplitude, phase, and frequency relate to the
lithology of the subsurface (Jibrin, 2009)

In this research, Geometric attribute is used,

focusing on smoothing, variance, and Ant-track.
Ant-track attribute is utilized as a main attribute
to detect the fracture occurance while the other
attribute is used as input for generating a more
realistic ant-track attribute volume. Ant-track
attribute was developed based on the concept of
ant colony systems to determine discontinuities
such as faults in 3D seismic data (Ngeri, 2015).

Regional Geology
North Sumatera Basin is a tertiary back arc
basin, bounded by Malaca Platform at the east, Fig 2. Study workflow and method
Asahan Arc at south, Bukit Barisan at the south
west, and NE-SW basement ridge trend at North
Before generating a seismic attribute volume,
and North West. Sumatera is a part of accreted
few post processing conditioning was done:
Sundaland which has a history from merging of
some terrains originated from Gondwana. Time Gain

Fig 1. Basement configuration of NSO Block. The Basement facing right in front of sub basin which
expected to be local kitchen source.

Time gain is used to equalize the amplitude to

Basement data in NSO Block is very limited due
to no well drilled had reached Basement yet,
while basement in NSB (nearest block) belongs
to Sibumasu terrain. Tapanuli Group (Sibumasu
Terrain) which is NSB basement aged
Carboniferous Permian: diamictite (Bohorok
Fm.), limestone-metalimestone (E. Permian Alas
ease the Variance to differentiate discontinuity
and continuity feature between basement and
layer on top of it.
Structural Smoothing
After time gain is applied, the data was
conditioned using structural smoothing to
 remove the background noise hence could The original 3D PSTM Seismic was reprocessed
clarify structures occurance. in 2008. This data needs to be carefully
conditioned with time gain and structural
This data set was then used as an input for smoothing so it will be optimal as input of
making variance attribute volume. Variance is variance attribute.
used to picture structural event that is not visible
in seismic amplitude section. The optimum window calculation for time gain
is per 3 inline, 3 crossline, and z 20 ms. Then
After variance attribute volume is generated, it is structural smooth is applied with window
then used as an input for making ant tracking correlation x: 1, y: 1, and z: 2,5.
attribute volume. The parameter used for ant-
tracking is using Aggresive method since passive
method does not clearly shows good
microdiscontinuty image.
The fracture distribution generated as seen in
variance attribute volume is then grouped and
the resources is calculated using MMRA
method.

RESULT AND DISCUSSION

Fig 4. Raw data after applying time gain.

Fig 3. The original PSTM amplitudo seismic section (raw data)

The circled feature is a feature to be concerned of. The dark circle shows a bright amplitude appearancce
that needs to be equalized in order to get a better ant tracking attribute volume

Fig 5. Structural smoothing data applied

This data set shown in figure 5 is then used to
generate structural attribute, in this case variance
attribute volume.
The window calculation for variance is per 3
inline, 3 crossline, and z 20 ms. Structures that
were not seen clearly in the amplitude data were
seen clearly in the variance attribute.
The fracture orientation used in this study is
based solely on regional geology knowledge,
since there are no well data needed (example,
FMI data) to guide the interpretation. Since the
known major fault orientation in this area is
North-South, so the fracture orientation was set
to be slong North-South. Whether the fracture is

Fig 6. Variance Attribute.

Variance attribute managed to show structural discontinuity feature. Layer bright spot occurance which
does not corresponds with structure (in black circle) was successfully eliminated, leaving only
structural/discontinuity remarks. Fault is also more visible in variance attribute making it easier to
interpret.

Fig 7. Ant Tracking Attribute result.

This variance attribute is the used as input on ant

track, with aggressive parameter. The parameter
used is agent distance 5 and deviation is 2.

The output was sufficiently shows fracture

presence and orientation. The result from ant
tracking alos shows a clearer fracture presence
compared to variance result.

Fig 8. Top basement map +50 ms shows fracture distribution

open or closed, can not be decided using this
study. ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The author would like to thank PT PHE NSO for

The resource of basement fracture is then the permission to publish this extended paper.
calculated using mmra method. The resource of
basement fracture high is 40,56 mmboe (Pmean).

KESIMPULAN / CONCLUSION

The post processing seismic conditioning is

needed to get a more optimum attribute
analysis. Moreover, attribute volume generated
shows significant improvement in showing
fracture in basement compared to original
seismic eventhough the less favorable seismic
data (poor s/n ratio at basement area).

The resource calculation shows a considerable

resources especially when there is other
objectives above basement which makes this
area is favorable to be developed

PUSTAKA / REFERENCES

Jibrin. B. W., Turner, J. P., Westbrook, G., Huck,

A., (2009). Application of volumetric seismic
attributes to delineate fault
geometry:Examples from the outer fold and
thrust belt, deepwater Niger Delta (Joint
Development Zone).
Landes, K. K., Amorouso, J. J., Charlesworth ,
L. J., Heany, F., & J., L. (1960). Petroleum
resources in basement rock. AAPG Bulletin,
44. Sun, W. and Yuan, Y. X., 2006,
Optimization theory and methods, Springer,
ISBN: 978-0-387-24975-9.
Ngeri, A. P., Tamunobereton-ari, I., Amakiri, A.
R. C., (12015). Ant-Tracker Attributes: An
Effective Approach To Enhancing Fault
identification And Interpretation. IOSR
Journal of VSLI and Signal Processing,
Volume 5, Issue 6, Ver. II (Nov -Dec. 2015),
PP 67-73 e-ISSN: 2319 4200, p-ISSN No. :
2319 4197.