Unocal drills 2 wells in RI

Unocal drills 2 wells in RI

EL SEGUNDO, California (Reuters): Unocal Corp Monday said its Indonesian subsidiary in Indonesia has drilled two new, successful wells in the deepwater Merah Besar area expanding the field's size.

"Based on the latest drilling results...we now estimate the gross resource potential for the Merah Besar area at 75 to 300 million barrels of oil equivalent," Timothy Lauer, president of Unocal Indonesia, said in a statement.

The two wells, Merah Besar 9 and Hitam Besar 1, encountered shallow gas on the East Kalimantan production-sharing contract area.

The Merah Besar 9 well also found deeper oil pay in the Miocene formation, but well problems prevented evaluation of the Miocene sands in the Hitam Besar 1.

The company intends to submit a plan of development for the Merah Besar area in the fourth quarter of 1998. Production could begin by early 2001, it said.