Malaysia Pips Indonesia in New Oil, Gas Discoveries

Malaysia surpassed Indonesia as the key player in the upstream hydrocarbon industry in Southeast Asia last year. 

Jakarta Post citing a report by Wood Mackenzie Group said that Indonesia, the former sole Southeast Asia member of the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), only contributed 14 percent to the region’s newly discovered oil and gas reserves in 2012. 

The report added that Indonesia discovered 13 million barrels of oil equivalent (boe) of new reserves in 20 new oil and gas fields, Jakarta Post said.

Malaysia, on the other hand, reported discoveries of 1.4 billion boe last year, or 72 percent of the total discoveries in the region, Wood Mackenzie report pointed. 

At least six new gas fields with combined estimated reserves of 7.3 trillion cubic feet (tcf) discovered in Malaysia were included in the top-10 largest discoveries in Southeast Asia, according to the report, the Indonesia newspaper said. 

Malaysia, which according to Wood Mackenzie had introduced several fiscal initiatives to encourage exploration and development, awarded 13 production sharing contracts (PSCs) in 2012, a record number for any one year. 

Indonesia’s unfavorable policies toward oil and gas firms have been blamed for the steady decline in oil output from 1.3 million barrels per day (bpd) in the early 2000s to the current figure of around 830,000 bpd as the country merely relies on aging fields, the newspaper said citing the research report.