PETRONAS Carigali Sdn Bhd, the exploration and production arm of PETRONAS, recently made two significant gas discoveries in the shallow water areas offshore the west coast of Sabah.

The first discovery was via the Zuhal East-1 well, which is located in the Samarang Asam Paya Block about 130km southwest of Kota Kinabalu. The well was spudded in water depth of 38m and reached a total depth of 2,336m to confirm the presence of significant gas-bearing reservoirs. The current estimate of gas-initially-in-place is about 550 billion standard cubic feet (bscf).

Similar reservoirs in a nearby well about 5km to the east of the Zuhal East discovery were tested to flow gas at a maximum rate of 21 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd). PETRONAS Carigali is the sole equity holder of the production sharing contract (PSC) of the Samarang Asam Paya Block.

The second discovery, at the Menggatal-1 well, is located in Block SB312, about 110km northeast of Kota Kinabalu. The well was spudded in water depth of 204m and reached a total depth of 2,100m. It was production-tested and flowed gas at a rate of 19 mmscfd through a 36/64-inch choke size with no recorded CO2 and H2S content. Gas-initially-in-place is currently estimated to be about 650 bscf.

The Block SB312 PSC is a joint-venture between PETRONAS Carigali with 60% equity and KUFPEC Malaysia (SB 312) Ltd, a subsidiary of Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company (KUFPEC), which holds the remaining interest.

PETRONAS Carigali is the operator for both PSCs. Further appraisals are being planned in the near future to delineate the extent of these discoveries.

Tags: PETRONAS