Thailand To Announce Winners For Erawan, Bongkot Gas Fields In Feb 2018

Reuters

BANGKOK, June 22 (Reuters) - Thailand will announce the winning bids to take over the concessions to operate the Erawan and Bongkot offshore natural gas fields in the Gulf of Thailand in February next year, the energy ministry said on Thursday.

The Erawan gas concession, operated by Chevron Corp, and the Bongkot gas concession, operated by state-backed PTT Exploration and Production PCL, will expire in 2022 and 2023, respectively.

The areas have combined output of 2.2 billion cubic feet a day, about 76 percent of output from the Gulf of Thailand.

The terms for the auction will be announced in July or August this year, Veerasak Pungrassamee, director of the energy ministry's mineral fuels department, told a press conference. "Everything is going according to the ministry's planned timeframe," Veerasak said.

Veerasak did not say when the auctions would be held. Energy Minister Anantaporn Kanjanarat said earlier this year the auctions would be held in December.

An amendment to a petroleum law that will give companies more options on how to manage exploration and production operations will come into effect on Friday.

The amendment, which was approved in March, gives companies the option of striking production sharing agreements (PSA) or service contracts with the government.

Oil and gas companies currently operate fields on a concession basis, paying taxes and royalties on profits.

The energy ministry will next work on laws that set the terms for production sharing agreements and service contracts, Veerasak said.

(Reporting by Patpicha Tanakasempipat; Editing by Tom Hogue)



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Gary Lower  |  June 23, 2017
This is interesting to me, as I was with Union Oil Company of Thailand, (later Unocal Thailand) when we designed and then constructed and installed the first platforms in the Gulf Of Thailand. That was really frontier days then. Erawan was a really neat experience that made my life in the international oil & gas industy a reality. I remember so many people from that time that really worked hard to get that project off the ground. We put a pencil to the paper in 1979, and had a target of first production in in October 1981. We did it - on time and under budget! Really interesting to see that the license has will expire now. Chevron later bought Unocal, but I remember this project well - from design through installation. Great memories!


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