Photo from Petros website for illustration purposes only.
KUCHING (June 18): The Sarawak government has endorsed the Conditional Award by Petroleum Sarawak Berhad (Petros) for Sarawak Onshore Block SK 433 to Petra Energy Development Sdn Bhd as operator of the block and its joint venture partner Uzma Engineering Sdn Bhd.
The former is a wholly owned subsidiary of Petra Energy while the latter is a wholly owned subsidiary of Uzma Berhad, said the Chief Minister’s Office in a statement today.
“Block SK 433 covers the Miri-Marudi area in Northern Sarawak. The award signifies — as a milestone — the ‘operationalisation’ of the state government’s control of oil mining and exploration in all the Onshore Areas of the state, pursuant to the Commercial Settlement Agreement (CSA) between the state government and Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) signed on Dec 7 last year,” the statement explained.
The Chief Minister’s Office said this marked a significant milestone for Sarawak as the state looks forward to the resumption of active exploration and production activities onshore.
“This is after a lapse of several years – Petros, as the Sarawak state-owned petroleum company, will be the One Stop Centre for the state, playing the role of resource regulator and manager.
“This award is the result of a competitive bidding exercise that was managed by Petros since January this year,” added the statement.
In the same statement, Petros said the successful investor met the Technical and Financial essential-capability requirements and has also submitted an acceptable bid of ‘work-programme of activity commitments’ aimed at rejuvenating exploration and production activities for the Block SK433 contract area.
“Phase 1 of the SK433 Petroleum Contract is for an initial four-year period (with option of one additional year extension) to complete its exploration and appraisal ‘work/activity commitments’. Upon the successful outcome of Phase 1, the subsequent Phase 2 will involve development and production activities,” added Petros.