Challenges in Seismic Imaging of Carbonates in SE Asia

Most of the world oil and gas reserves come from carbonates. The world statistics shows that the carbonates represent only 20% of the total sedimentary rocks but 60% of world’s oil/gas reserves are from carbonates of various ages. In Malaysia, 40% of the gas reserves come from Miocene carbonates of offshore Sarawak. There are many issues in carbonates which have yet to be resolved. The link between geology and geophysics are essential elements in carbonate studies. There is a need to characterize these carbonates by establishing a link between sedimentology, Rockphysics and Seismic in order to/increase gas production to sustain LNG and other energy usage for the country. There is a strong relationship between sequence stratigraphic framework and present-day vertical distribution of different lithologies. The seismic response need to be investigated for different lithologies, lithofacies and structural or physical features.