Saturday, 29 January 2011

Petronas to announce 4 marginal oil fields by April

Petronas) expects to announce four marginal oilfield development projects by April, of which two will be revealed “soon”, according to its president Datuk Shamsul Azhar Abbas.

Shamsul said on Thursday, Jan 27 the consortiums or partnerships that are involved in the marginal field development had to have at least 30% local equity interest.

He said the development marginal oilfields would not be on production sharing contracts (PSC), which the national oil company has with several oil majors, such as ExxonMobil and Shell, since 1970s.

“It is a risk service contract (for marginal field development). Unlike the PSC, the oil & gas reserve is 100% Petronas-owned,” he said at a media briefing.

Shamsul said the consortiums that were awarded the development projects would be like “service providers” for Petronas. They would be paid fees for the services and infrastructures plus “performance bonus”.

He confirmed that the bidding process for the two much talked about marginal fields, namely Sepat and Berantai, had concluded.

“We are still negotiating on certain details…would be announced soon,” said Shamsul when commenting on the two clusters of marginal oilfields in Sepat and Berantai.

In addition, he disclosed that another marginal oilfields have been opened up for bid currently which are expected to announce in April.