06-02-04 Italian oil and gas company ENI confirmed reports it has won a deal to explore and produce gas in Saudi Arabia.
ENI won an international tender along with other unnamed companies, a spokeswoman said. The Italian company will be the operator in the area, she said.

A Saudi Oil Ministry official said Spanish integrated oil company Repsol-YPF is partnered with ENI on the deal. State-owned Saudi Arabian Oil Co., also known as Aramco, will hold a 20 % stake in the venture, the official said. A Repsol spokesperson said it holds a 30 % stake in the joint-venture company, leaving ENI with 50 %.
The size of the block is 52,000 sq km, according to the Ministry. This is the last of three bids for gas exploration and production in Saudi Arabia, off-limits to foreigners for a quarter-century.

Last summer, Shell and Total were the first international firms to clinch exploration rights in the southern desert region. Saudi Arabia has since tendered out three more gas blocks, the third of which will beawarded.
These pared-down, exploration-only deals follow last year's collapse of an ambitious $ 25 bn Saudi gas initiative, led by ExxonMobil and Shell, which aimed to couple natural-gas exploration and production with related downstream utilities and petrochemicals projects in three huge projects.