ExxonMobil has found oil and gas off Vietnam's central coast, raising hopes that the South Asian nation will be able to reverse a decline in fossil-fuel production and exports. Exxon said it drilled its second exploratory well off the coast of Danang City in August and found hydrocarbons. A company spokesman said Tuesday that data from the well, located in an area known as Block 119, are being analyzed.

The company said the first well it drilled in offshore Vietnam didn't encounter oil and gas. Exxon, which is based in Irving, Texas, didn't disclose additional details.

Exxon's discovery is important for Vietnam, which is trying to boost its oil and gas production as the country's aging fields fail to meet growing domestic demand. Vietnam, a net oil exporter and the third-largest oil producer in South Asia, started awarding exploration rights in 2004 to companies from the U.S., Canada and India.

For Exxon, the world's largest publicly traded oil company by market value, the find is good news as limited access to new resources makes it difficult for major oil companies to increase production and replace reserves.

'It's hard to know how significant this find is for Exxon because we don't know the size of it, but it's definitely positive for a company to have a discovery in a region many people believe could be very prolific,' said Phil Weiss, an analyst at Argus Research.

The discovery lies in the South China Sea, where Vietnam has rich oil reserves. State-run PetroVietnam and international oil companies already produce at several major fields in the area. A number of companies recently have found oil in the region, including Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd., U.K.-based Premier Oil, Russia's Gazprom and France's Total.

China is embroiled in a dispute with Vietnam, Taiwan, Malaysia, Brunei and the Philippines about territorial rights in the South China Sea. China, which claims all of the South China Sea including the Paracel archipelago east of Danang, in 2008 asked Exxon to abandon an exploration deal in the seas off Vietnam, according to local media. It wasn't clear if Block 119 was covered by that request. Exxon declined to comment on the reports.

Tags: Exxon Mobil Corporation