Thailand awards seven oil and gas blocks

Thailand's cabinet approved the award of seven blocks to six oil and gas companies, a Department of Mineral Fuel official said. DMF had awarded the concessions in October 2002 but was awaiting cabinet approval.

Details of the awards are as follows:
-- offshore Block G4/43 covering an area of 9,686 sq km was awarded to Chevron Offshore Thailand;
-- onshore Block L22/43 covering an area of 3,632 sq km was awarded to Thai Shell;
-- onshore Block L21/43 covering an area of 3,148 sq km was awarded to China National Petroleum Corp;
-- onshore Block L71/43 covering an area of 3,086 sq km was awarded to Thailand's SVS Energy Resources;
-- offshore Block G5/43 covering an area of 17,110 sq km was awarded to US-based Nucoastal;
-- onshore Blocks L33/43 and L44/43 covering an area of 3,962 sq km and 3,927 sq km, respectively, were awarded to Canada-based Pacific Tiger Energy's Thai subsidiary.

The DMR official indicated that six of the seven blocks were located in the vicinity ofproducing fields. Block G4/43 is located to the west of Chevron's Benchamas field in Block B8/32 in the Gulf of Thailand, which produces around 55,000 bpd of crude and 180 mm cfpd of natural gas.
Blocks L33/43 and L44/43 are located near the Wichian Buri and Si Thep fields in Block SW1 in central Thailand. These fields are currently producing around 140 bpd of crude and have proven reserves of 10 mm barrel of oil.