Searah, the joint venture energy company formed by Italy's Eni and Malaysia's Petronas, has started developing a floating gas facility to process gas from its $11.8 billion North Hub project in Indonesia, the Indonesian government said.
The company held a first steel cutting ceremony on Thursday to kickstart the construction of the Floating Production, Storage, and Offloading (FPSO) vessel, which will be a processing hub for 16 wells from the Geng North and Gehem gas fields, the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry said.
The two gas fields make up Searah's North Hub project in Indonesia's Kutai Basin, off Borneo island. The project is targeted to start production in 2028, the ministry said in a statement late on Thursday.
Production is expected to reach 1 billion cubic feet of gas per day and 80,000 barrels of condensate per day by the fourth quarter of 2028.
Of the total $11.8 billion investment in the project, around $2.9 billion was allocated to develop the FPSO, Djoko Siswanto, head of the upstream oil and gas regulator SKK Migas, said in the same statement.
"Today's achievement demonstrates our continued confidence in Indonesia's energy sector, as well as our long-term commitment to continue investing, growing, and creating value in this country," Mirko Araldi, an executive of Eni North Ganal Ltd, was quoted as saying.
(Reuters - Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by David Stanway)