Malaysian Bunga Kekwah oil field starts production

Malaysian Bunga Kekwah oil field starts production

SINGAPORE (Reuter): Malaysia's newest crude field, Bunga Kekwah, started production on Wednesday at 10,000 barrels per day (bpd), an industry source said yesterday.

Production at the offshore field, which utilizes a floating production vessel, is expected to reach 18,000 bpd within 10 days, the source added.

The first 250,000 barrel cargo of the medium sweet crude, loading in the second half of August, has already been sold to BP through a tender issued by Malaysian trading company Petco, in early July.

Petco plans to issue another tender soon to sell a second cargo, loading in September, but had not fixed a date for the tender issue yet, industry sources said.

Kekwah has an American Petroleum Institute gravity of 36.5 degrees and sulfur content of 0.05 percent. The crude is expected to yield 40 percent gas oil and 40 percent low sulfur waxy residue.

The consortium developing the field is made up of Petronas Carigali, with 46.06 percent, Petrovietnam Exploration and Production with 12.5 percent, Canada's International Petroleum Corp (IPC) with 26.44 percent and Sands Petroleum AB with 15 percent.

One analyst, who declined to be named, said the start up represented the first new hydrocarbon production from Malaysia since 1971 by a foreign operator, other than long standing producers Shell and Esso.

It was also the first production sharing contract following the 1985 revision of terms to produce hydrocarbons, he said. IPC is the operator of the Bunga Kekwah field.