SE Asia needs better exploring methods
SE Asia needs better exploring methods
KUALA LUMPUR (AFP): Southeast Asia's oil fields are likely to continue flowing for another 30-to-40 years, but explorers would need better techniques to make new strikes when old wells dried up, experts and officials said yesterday.
"There are lots of opportunities for oil and gas exploration in Southeast Asia. But it is going to take higher technology for us to reach the new fields," said Michael Johnson, technical vice-president of U.S. oil giant Exxon.
Johnson told a conference on Southeast Asian oil and gas that a recent count of the region's oil reserves showed it had close to 31 billion barrels, while its gas deposit was estimated to be at 281 trillion cubic feet.
"But there's been so much oil and gas found in this region that when the estimates dry up, it's going to be difficult to find more without better technology," Johnson said.
He said a case in point was the Malay oil basin off Malaysia's eastern Trengganu state -- one of the region's richest hydrocarbon fields -- which had already exhausted 1.3 billion barrels of its estimated four billion barrel capacity in just 21 years.
Some 1,500 industry experts and officials are attending the three-day conference by the American Association of Petroleum Geologists (AAPG), which seeks to address potential problems for oil and gas explorers in Southeast Asia after the turn of the century.
Methods
Toby Carleton, president of the AAPG, said more sophisticated seismic studies and exploration methods were needed to assure the region's oil and gas production rates in the next four decades.
"The way I look at it, the reserves in this region should last for at least 30 to 40 years based on current demand and supply," Carleton said.
Syed Hamid Albar, Malaysia's minister for oil and gas affairs, said future exploration efforts in Southeast Asia must be extended to more unconventional deepwater areas.
"Limited exploration was carried out in the these areas in the past due to technological constraints and high investments costs," Syed Hamid said.
G. A. S. Nayoan, a director of Indonesia's state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina, said demand for oil in developing countries was expected to rise 3.87 percent per annum and natural gas 5.6 percent per year from 2000.
"These staggering numbers of forecast demand of oil and gas must be met by explorers," Nayoan said.