Petronas awards 3 North Malay Basin gas fields to Hess Corp
KUALA LUMPUR, June 21 — State oil firm Petronas signed three production sharing contracts with the exploration arm of US firm Hess Corp today, kicking off a $5.2 billion (RM15.7 billion) gas project off Malaysia's east coast.
The North Malay Basin project, comprising nine gas fields about 300 km off the east coast of peninsular Malaysia, is aimed at securing new gas supplies for Petronas as it faces a supply crunch.
Petronas awarded production sharing contracts (PSC) for three fields to Hess Corp and its own exploration arm, Petronas Carigali. One was an amended PSC, while the others were new exploration PSCs with a 50:50 equity split between the two firms, the company said.
Petronas has said it is looking to commercialise about 1.7 standard trillion cubic feet of gas reserves from the area, part of a drive to bring on marginal domestic fields and secure gas with a high CO2 content.
Petronas and its production sharing partners are aiming for first delivery of 100 million standard cubic feet (mmscfd) of gas per day by 2013, ramping up to 250 mmscfd by 2015, the company said.
It was not immediately clear if Petronas would export some of the gas. Domestic power demand has been on the rise in Malaysia, due partly to regulated domestic prices that are lower than market rates. — Reuters