SapuraOMV Starts up Malaysian Field

SapuraOMV, a 50:50 joint venture between Austria's OMV and Malaysia's Sapura, has reported stable production at the Bakong gas field off the shore of Sarawak, OMV said on September 3.

Bakong is part of the SK408 production-sharing contract, in which SapuraOMV has 40% and partners Shell and Malaysia's Petronas each have 30%. The group also launched production at the area's Larak and Gorek gas fields in December 2019 and May this year respectively. All three fields were discovered in 2014.

SapuraOMV and its partners supply gas under a long-term contract to Petronas, which liquefies it at its complex in Bintulu, Sarawak. Production at SK408 is set to exceed 30,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day this year, which is double the amount extracted in 2019.

"With the successful start-up phase, we are setting a further step in strengthening the gas focus in our production portfolio and it is a strong signal in our OMV core region Asia-Pacific," OMV's deputy chairman Johann Pleininger commented.

The Austrian producer has been expanding the share of gas in its production at the expense of oil, which it says will not only improve earnings but also reduce its carbon footprint. Gas accounted for nearly 62% of the 464,000 boe/d of hydrocarbons OMV extracted in the second quarter, up from 56% a year earlier.