Indonesian Mako Gas Plan Submitted
Singaporean explorer Conrad Petroleum has submitted to the Indonesian upstream regulator SKKMigas its plan for the development of the Mako gas discovery offshore Indonesia, said Empyrean August 3.
Mako is in the Duyung production sharing contract, which is wholly owned by West Natuna Exploration (WNEL) owned by Conrad (90%), and by AIM-listed but Western Australia-based Empyrean Energy (10%) which took its stake in April last year. The first well was successfully completed a few months later and the gas was almost pure methane with no contaminants.
The Indonesian energy ministry is expected to approve the plan during Q4 2018. WNEL engaged state consultancy Lemigas to prepare and submit the plan so that it met regulatory requirements.
Approval of the Mako plan paves the way for the Duyung PSC to convert into a Production Permit through to 2037. As part of the initial submission, WNEL has negotiated and reached a heads of agreement for the sale of all Mako gas to a regional utility, with the price and other terms yet to be negotiated.
Beneath Mako lies the relatively shallow Mako Deep, which is "likely to contain well developed thick sand packages as proven by the Tengirri-1 well (drilled by Conoco in 1975). Provisional initial estimates show that Mako Deep has the potential to contain very large quantities of recoverable hydrocarbons, both oil and natural gas," said Conrad.
Lemigas completed a certification of reserves based primarily on the Mako South-1 well. Conrad has also completed an internal calculation of its 2C contingent resources based on the full Mako Gas Field, which it puts at 373bn ft³. Subject to agreeing access terms, the gas will flow through the West Natuna Transport System (“WNTS”) to Singapore.
Conrad CEO Justin Pettett said the world class team set ambitious targets to deliver upon following the Mako Gas Field discovery in 2017. So far, all objectives have been met and delivered ahead of time. This has been an extremely busy year and we are now well placed to achieve further progress towards development at Mako into 2019." The company is looking for other partners and says it is encouraged by the interest shown. Last year Empyrean turned down the option to double its stake.