Unocal to embark on West Seno project

Unocal to embark on West Seno project

SINGAPORE: Unocal Corp. is set to embark on the second part of a two-phase West Seno oil and gas development project offshore East Kalimantan by early next year, said Andrew Buglass, a senior executive at Unocal Asia-Pacific Ventures Ltd.

Unocal will "start the process (of arranging the award of an engineering and procurement contract) in earnest early next year," Buglass said Tuesday.

Completion of the second and last phase of West Seno development is expected by 2005, he said, with oil production peaking at 60,000 barrels a day.

By Phase Two of West Seno development, gas output should peak at 150 million cubic feet a day, he added.

Buglass, vice president of Unocal's Asian project finance, was speaking on the sidelines of a power financing conference in Singapore.

The US$1-billion West Seno project in the Makassar Straits, Unocal's first deepwater project in Indonesia, is expected to yield 40,000 b/d of oil "shortly," Buglass said, declining to give an exact timeframe.

Unocal estimates reserves of around 300 million barrels of oil equivalent in its West Seno field, which it operates with a 90 percent interest. Its partner in West Seno, Indonesia's Pertamina, holds the remaining 10 percent. -- Dow Jones