Southeast Asia is expected to receive record levels of offshore investment, fueling the expansion of the region’s upstream industry. EIC’s Angeline Elias outlines the hotspots.
The top five countries in 2017 leading offshore project activity in the region will be Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam and the Philippines, according to the EIC’s project tracking database, EICDataStream. For the period 2017-21, there are a total of 169 projects proposed or under development in Southeast Asia, worth an estimated US$124 billion (see charts below).
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Indonesia
Indonesia’s government aims to develop five floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) in 2017, as part of its plans to improve domestic gas infrastructure and increase utilization of natural gas in its domestic market. The country has two new FSRUs, in Central Java (FSRU Cilacap) and West Java (FSRU Cilamaya) under development and expected to be operational in 2018 and 2021, respectively. In terms of contracting activity, the Jambaran Tiung Biru-Cendana, Jambu Aye Utara and Ande Ande Lumut offshore developments are all scheduled to award contracts this year.
Malaysia
In Malaysia, Petronas plans to reduce its capex and opex to about $11 billion over the next four years, due to the low crude oil prices. However, there are substantial offshore projects still moving ahead, such as the Bokor Phase III field, which is in the process of developing its central processing platform (CPP) with a contract award expected in 1H 2017.
Another positive development is the new gas discovery in Block SK408, offshore Sarawak, by SapuraKencana Energy, which is estimated to hold multi-TCF of gas. Another project making progress is the Pegaga gas discovery, in Block SK320, again offshore Sarawak, where the invitation to tender for an engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning contract is expected to be issued by Q3 2017.
Vietnam and Thailand
Rosneft has started drilling on an exploration well in the Nam Con Son Basin in Vietnam, which has anticipated recoverable reserves of 445 Bcf of natural gas. In Thailand, Chevron has decided to re-evaluate its engineering design for the Ubon field’s proposed CPP, which has a final investment decision set for 2018. Carigali-PTT Operating Co. (CPOC) continues to be active in the B-17 Block, in the Gulf of Thailand in the Thailand-Malaysia joint development area, where it is moving ahead with the phase four field, comprising of three wellhead platforms with subsea tie-ins to the existing facilities.
Decommissioning looms
Looking to the future, the decommissioning sector will increase in importance with Brunei, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand home to approximately 833 installations that are 20+ years old – the average life expectancy of offshore assets. Malaysia’s Petronas and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Public Co. have already listed platforms to be decommissioned and feasibility studies are under way.
Angeline Elias is regional analyst at the EIC for the Asia Pacific region. She has previously worked for Southeast Asian major oil and gas fabricator, Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering.
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