Vietnam interested in buying gas from Tuna block

Petromindo|Lucky

Vietnam has expressed interest in buying gas from Tuna block, offshore Natuna, operated by Premier Oil Tuna BV, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Thursday.

The paper quoted Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Ignasius Jonan as saying that if the plan is realized, the contractor will develop a 71-km pipeline.

?The point is that gas output from Tuna block operated by Premier Oil will be sold to Vietnam via SKK Migas (Indonesia?s upstream oil and gas authority),? Jonan said after accompanying President Joko Widodo in a meeting with Vietnamese delegation led by Secretary General of the Vietnamese Communist Party, Nguyen Phu Trong at the State Palace. He did not provide further details.

As reported by this portal in May of this year, Premier said it planned to bring its Tuna block into production in 2023. The block was envisaged to produce around 25,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.

In March 2007, Premier was awarded a 65 percent operating interest in the Tuna PSC. The remaining 35 percent is held by Mitsui Oil Corporation. In April 2014, Premier drilled the Kuda Laut-1 well which discovered 183 feet of net oil-bearing reservoir and 327 feet of net gas-bearing reservoir.

The well was then side-tracked to drill the Singa Laut prospect in an adjacent fault block where 177 feet of net gas-bearing reservoir quality sands were penetrated.

In January of this year, Premier was granted a three-year extension to the exploration period of the Tuna PSC license where evaluation of potential development scenarios of the 2014 Kuda Laut and Singa Laut gas discoveries, now collectively known as the Tuna Field, is ongoing, the company said in a first-half 2017 report published on Thursday. ?Discussions are progressing with the governments of Vietnam and Indonesia regarding connections to existing infrastructure in Vietnam,? the company said. (*)