PEKANBARU -- PT Pertamina Hulu Rokan (PHR) discovered potential new oil and gas resources and reserves in existing fields in the Rokan Block.

"This discovery is Pertamina's commitment to extending the life of the Rokan Working Area (WK) through exploration activities with new study standards and concepts," said EVP Upstream Business PHR Rokan WK Edwil Suzandi in his statement in Pekanbaru, Thursday (28/12/2023).

Edwil said this discovery shows that although the Rokan Block is an area with relatively mature hydrocarbons, it still has significant remaining exploration potential.

The volume of new resources would soon be handed over from the PHR Exploration team to the PHR Development team. In this way, the Rokan Block can be produced in order to increase oil and gas production to support national energy security.

According to Edwil, the PHR WK Rokan exploration together with the support of Pertamina's upstream subholding and the Special Task Force for Upstream Oil and Gas Business Activities (SKK Migas) continues to carry out studies and innovations in exploration efforts to increase the amount of production in the Rokan Block.

Currently, the average production of PHR WK Rokan is 160 thousand barrels of oil per day (BOPD) from assets of approximately 6,400 m2. "PHR is moving quickly to look for new resources and reserves in the most productive work areas in Indonesia," he said.

Mature oil fields are also seen as attractive. For this reason, the PHR WK Rokan exploration team re-evaluated all subsurface aspects (geology, geophysics and reservoirs) in existing areas by optimizing seismic data and previous well logs through a new concept of subsurface interpretation.

"Apart from that, PHR also applies new concepts and understanding to the oil generation, accumulation and capture system (petroleum system)," said Edwil.

The application of this method has succeeded in increasing the discovery portfolio of additional in-place exploration resources of around 350 million barrels of oil in the Telisa formation. This method succeeds in achieving efficiency without incurring significant exploration investment costs through drilling wells.

Other exploration discovery activities that have currently been and are being matured and evaluated are the potential of the Perusahaan, Pematang and Basement reservoirs.