Thai PTTEP Suspends Onshore Field
Thai upstream company PTTEP has temporarily ceased all operations in the land reform areas in the S1 project June 3, 2017. However the production affected is a relatively small proportion of the state-owned PTT upstream subsidiary's overall production.
This follows a ruling from Thailand's top court revoking the agricultural land reform committee’s order to allow the use of natural resources in areas of land reform for any purposes other than agriculture, the company said June 5.
This order led to the mineral fuels department of Thailand's energy ministry instructing all onshore concessionaires to temporarily cease petroleum operations located in the agriculture land reform areas.
PTTEP Siam, a subsidiary of PTTEP is the operator of the S1 project. It acquired the project from Thai Shell Exploration & Production Company in 2004. In 1993, a royal decree on land reforms was issued which resulted in the project area overlapping with land areas under the oversight of the agricultural land reform office (ALRO).
In the year 2000, Thai-Shell submitted an application to the ALRO for permission and consent to use the land, per the ALRO’s regulatory procedures. Having acquired the project in 2004 from Thai-Shell which had received permission and consent from the ALRO to use the land, PTTEP assumed operatorship and continued to periodically submit land usage permission requests per regulatory requirements, PTTEP said.
The S1 project covers the area of Sukhothai, Phitsanulok and Kamphaengpet provinces in which PTTEP and PTTEP Siam hold 100% participating interest with the average 2016 sales volumes of crude oil of approximately 27,351 b/d, LPG sales volumes of approximately 264 tons/d and natural gas sales volumes of approximately 21mn ft3/d.
PTTEP expects that the temporary suspension of S1 operations will lead to a decrease of crude oil sales volumes of approximately 15,000 b/d, LPG sales volumes of approximately 130 tons/d and natural gas sales volume of approximately 10mn ft3/d. “Such reduction accounts for approximately 4-5% of 2017 PTTEP’s sales volume guidance at 300,000 – 310,000 boe/d,” it said.
Shardul Sharma