Petronas signs oil contract

Petronas signs oil contract

KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Malaysia's Petroliam Nasional Bhd.
(Petronas) said it had signed an oil production-sharing contract
with Sarawak Shell Bhd. for a deepwater block off resource-rich
Miri, in eastern Sarawak state.

Shell will have 80 percent interest and will be the operator
of the block located about 100 kilometers (160 miles) off Miri,
said Hassan Marican, president and chief executive of the
national oil corporation.

Petronas' exploration arm, Petronas Carigali, will hold the
remaining 20 percent interest in the block.

This would be the second deepwater deal clinched by the Dutch-
based Shell, the first being a block off Malaysia's eastern state
of Sabah secured in January last year.

It also represented the sixth deepwater block to be awarded by
Petronas, with the other four being given to American-based
Mobil.

"Under the terms of the deepwater production sharing contract,
the exploration period will be seven years, the development
period 6 years and the production period 25 years," he said.