22 oil-gas concessions set
The Energy Ministry's Mineral Fuels Department has announced plans to invite bids on 22 new petroleum-field concessions.
Songpope Polachan, director-general of the department, said the 21st round of concessions would be proposed to the petroleum committee for approval next month. After their consideration it will be forwarded to the Energy Minister for approval. If everything proceeds as expected, the department will announce the final details in the Royal Gazette in March, and bidding will open by midyear.
Of the 22 petroleum fields on offer, 11 are in the Northeast, six in the North and Central regions, and five in the Gulf of Thailand. The offshore fields will be more than 100 kilometres away from the coast so as to avoid any disputes with the small fishing industry. The total area of the concessions both on and offshore is about 46,000 square kilometres.
Songpope said this new round of concessions would have additional incentives to previous ones, so as to attract participants.
The department expects these new fields will uncover 3 trillion to 5 trillion cubic feet of natural gas and about 5 million to 10 million barrels of crude oil.
To date, the Mineral Fuels Depart-ment has granted 63 concessions that are under operation, and 79 petroleum fields under exploration. These include 40 fields on land, 36 in the Gulf of Thailand and three in the Andaman Sea.
For the 2011 fiscal year (October 2010 to September 2011), the department generated Bt146.9 billion revenue from petroleum exploration and production, higher than the previous fiscal year’s total of Bt124.318 billion.
