1.

INTRODUCTION

A tight petroleum reservoir is still an enigmatic phenomenon in geological processes at a

depth of sedimentary basins, which is commonly associated with burial and diagenetic events at
sedimentary basins. The diagenetic process is primarily responsible for precipitating clay
minerals within pores, causing low porosity and permeability responses (Chilingar et al., 1967).
Several engineering ways to treat such a tight reservoir to increase its performance as a medium
and storage of petroleum deposits, such as:
1) Hydraulic fracturing and
2) Acid fracturing.
In this project, the elementary observation of the effect of acid treatment in carbonate
rock will be carried out to understand the evolution of selected carbonate reservoirs (e.g.,
Kerendan Prospect). The acid treatment can have profound implications to increase the total
volume percent of the intergranular pore in carbonate rocks by reducing the volume of carbonate
minerals. Moreover, increasing porosity may also have to change the degree of permeability in
rocks, where fluid (e.g., petroleum) can have the freedom to pass through every treated pore by
acid solutions. In this context, understanding the alteration of carbonate’s physical properties is
essential for further engineer approaches to increase reservoir performance.
Here, the Universitas Pertamina proposes to study an experimental work on carbonate
rocks to understand the nature of textural, porosity, and permeability before and after acid
treatment in a vacuum chamber. The result can provide an initial stage of characterization of the
carbonate rocks of Kerendan Field. Moreover, this study may also offer new insight for further
engineering proposals to increase carbonate petroleum reservoir performance. This works will
also implement the original concept and ideas to build a porosity and permeability model from
core samples of carbonates at the Kerendan Petroleum Field, using conventional approaches,
such as petrography and Scanning Electron Microscope – Energy Dispersive Spectrometer
(SEM-EDS) together with rather new analytical technique of micro-CT scanner.
1.1. Kerendan Gas Field
Kerendan Gas Field is located on the landmass of Central Kalimantan, Borneo Island. It
can be classified as one of the frontier locations to explore gas accumulation in the Upper Kutai
Basin. Exploration had been conducted for over 30 years, and the gas field was discovered in
1982. However, the main problem for producing gas is still associated with the physical
properties of the reservoir. The reservoir mainly composes a wide range of carbonate facies from
the back- to front-reef facies with an extension of about 176 km 2 (Figure 1), suggested from 2D
seismic data combined with a few well interpretation. Recent 3D seismic data in 2017-2018
provided a new understanding of reservoir heterogeneities and its geometry within the
sedimentary shelf when the carbonate deposition was taken place in geological time (Figure 1).
Melange and meta-sediment thought to be the basement of the Upper Kutai Basin, which
mostly shows a general structural high trend of ENE-WSW (N 77° E) and kinked toward N 40°
E. the carbonate of Upper Berai Formation unconformably overlies the basement with several
sequences of a carbonate platform. Several tectonic events mostly modified the Kerendan
Carbonate Platform during the post- and syn-deposition of somewhat enigmatic Upper Berai
Carbonates. The Kerendan Carbonate Platform shows the morphology of horseshoe structure of
the Upper and Middle Berai Formation, toward the southeast area. Series tectonic events had
changed the carbonate sequence from open carbonate platform in c. 32 Ma to a semi-isolated
rimmed platform in c. 28.6 Ma, which makes the building blocks of carbonate at Kerendan Gas
Field potential giant gas storage on the Upper Kutai Basin.

Figure 1. Summary of a depositional setting of carbonate reservoir of Kerendan Gas Field. The model was taken from Laya et al., 2019, in the
2019 Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA) Proceeding.
 1.2. Deliverability
The Universitas Pertamina offers several products to complete the final report on a
specific study of “A study of carbonate reservoirs at Kerendan Petroleum Field: texture, porosity,
and permeability of pristine and acid-treated carbonates,” by the following:
a. Collection of thin section;
b. Rock description;
c. Mineralogy from X-ray diffraction analysis;
d. Routine Core Analysis (RCAL) data;
e. Micro-CT data;
f. Synthesis of reservoir characteristics.
All data will be delivered as raw datasets and final interpretation related to the project to Uhuy
Energy at the final report. We will provide weekly reports every two weeks as a PowerPoint
presentation to maintain the project’s quality and to get inputs from Medco Energy in every
progress.

1.3. Methods
Mineralogical and petrographical analyses will be carried out to understand the
characteristics and evolution of porosity and permeability of fresh and acid-treated carbonate
rocks (see figure 2, research workflow). Here is the wishlist of analytical methods that will be
performed to provide preliminary results on rock characteristics.
a. HCL or acid treatment (Zhang R, Hou Bing et al., 2002).
b. Petrographic observation of alizarin treated samples.
c. SEM-EDS observation.
d. Micro-CT analysis will be performed to image the density difference that possibly
captures available intergranular pores.
e. X-ray Diffraction to quantitatively validate the mineralogy of the sample.
f. Routine Core Analysis (RCAL) to measure the porosity and permeability using
porosimeter and permeameter.
 Figure 2. Workflows of the “A study of carbonate reservoirs at the Kerendan Prospect: texture, porosity, and permeability of pristine and acid-
treated carbonates” project.

1.4. Project timeline

The project will be conducted from December 2020 to May 2021 because we anticipate
future distractions during our research period, for instance, a similar outbreak to the pandemic of
Covid-19. Moreover, the timeline will also anticipate technical problems, such as routine
machine service. Detailed project timeline is shown on Table 2.
Table 2. Table of project’s timeframe from December 2020 to May 2021
 2. REFERENCES

 Al-Ameri, A., & Gamadi, T. (2020). Optimization of acid fracturing for a tight carbonate
reservoir. Petroleum, 6(1), 70–79. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.petlm.2019.01.003
 Chilingar, G. V., Bissell, H. J., & Wolf, K. H. (1967). Chapter 5 Diagenesis of Carbonate Rocks.
In G. Larsen & G. V. Chilingar (Eds.), Developments in Sedimentology (Vol. 8, pp.
179–322). Elsevier. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0070-4571(08)70844-6
 Laya, K. P., Ramadhan, D., Rizkiaputra, R., Goesmiyarso, S., & Subekti, A. (2019, September
4). Characterization of Massive Tight Gas Reservoir: Unlocking the Greater
Kerendan Potential. Proc. Indon. Petrol. Assoc., 43rd Ann. Conv., 2019. Forty-Third
Annual Convention & Exhibition, September 2019, Jakarta.
 Zhang, R., Hou, B., Zhou, B., Liu, Y., Xiao, Y., & Zhang, K. (2020). Effect of acid fracturing on
carbonate formation in southwest China based on experimental investigations.
Journal of Natural Gas Science and Engineering, 73, 103057.
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jngse.2019.103057
 Zhu, D., Hu, Y., Cui, M., Chen, Y., Liang, C., He, Y., Wang, X., & Wang, D. (2019). Feasibility
analysis on the pilot test of acid fracturing for carbonate reservoirs in Halfaya
Oilfield, Iraq. Energy Science & Engineering, 7(3), 721–729.
https://doi.org/10.1002/ese3.290