Eni and Petronas plan to start up as many as eight new projects in Indonesia and Malaysia over the next three years, Eni’s chief executive Claudio Descalzi told Malaysia’s national news agency Bernama in an interview, following last week’s announcement that the two firms are creating a joint venture to combine their offshore assets in Southeast Asia.
“In the next three years, we are going to start eight new projects based on the existing reserves: four in Indonesia, four in Malaysia,” Descalzi told Bernama.
“We are going to drill wells to test additional exploration reserves that we can further add value to this project,” the Italian firm’s CEO said.
The joint venture, NewCo, announced last week, plans $15 billion in investment in developing the proved (P1) reserves over the next five years.
“The 15 billion is the first stage, it is based just on the P1 reserves,” Descalzi told Bernama.
Last week, the Italian energy giant and Malaysia’s state oil and gas firm Petronas said they are combining their upstream assets in Indonesia and Malaysia in a new, equally-owned joint venture.
The joint venture will integrate a portfolio of gas-producing and development assets across Malaysia and Indonesia, with an initial production base of over 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boe/d) and plans to grow to more than 500,000 boe/d of sustainable production in the medium term.
The new business in Southeast Asia is part of Eni’s so-called “satellite model strategy”, following similar ventures such as Var Energy in Norway, Azule in Angola, and Ithaca in the UK.
The Italian energy giant has approached things differently than its peers, attempting to either divest or create joint ventures for international oil and gas projects, while grouping and spinning off some low-carbon projects in a “satellite strategy”.
For example, Eni last year agreed with major UK oil and gas producer Ithaca Energy to combine substantially all of its upstream assets in the UK, excluding East Irish Sea assets and CCUS activities, in “a strategic move to significantly strengthen its presence on the UK Continental Shelf.”
By Tsvetana Paraskova for Oilprice.com
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