Petronas to award second deal for marginal field soon

KUALA LUMPUR: Petroliam Nasional Bhd (Petronas) is expected to announce the second contract to develop a marginal oil field soon.

“Petronas is currently finalising the second risk services contract (RSC) and will make an announcement in due time,” a Petronas spokesman told Business Times.

The spokesman, however, did not identify the field.
In January this year, Petronas said it will award two marginal oil field contracts by April. The only RSC awarded so far is for the Berantai field to the Petrofac-Kencana Petroleum-SapuraCrest Petroleum partnership early this year.

But in its prospectus for listing on Bursa Malaysia last month, Bumi Armada Bhd said it was awarded a floating, storage and offload (FSO) vessel contract for the Sepat field. It is claimed to be the first under the marginal fields initiative of the government’s Economic Transformation Programme (ETP).


Responding to Business Times’ query, the spokesman clarified that Sepat is a field currently being developed under a production sharing contract operated by Petronas Carigali Sdn Bhd, the exploration and production arm of the national oil company.

In December last year, Petronas Carigali awarded the engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning contract for Sepat to Petrofac, which in turn awarded the FSO vessel contract to Bumi Armada.

The development of the marginal oil and gas fields under the new RSC arrangement is part of the initiatives under the ETP.

Malaysia, according to Petronas, has 106 marginal fields, with 580 million barrels of oil.