Gas price inked for $10-billion Block B-O Mon

September 02, 2017 | 14:11

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A long-anticipated contract to fix wellhead gas price transport for Block B-O Mon, one of the two biggest and most significant petroleum projects in Vietnam, was signed on September 1.

The deal was inked between Vietnam Oil and Gas Group (PetroVietnam), PetroVietnam Exploration Production Corporation (PVEP), and PetroVietnam Gas Joint Stock Corporation (PV Gas), Japan’s Mitsui Oil Exploration Co., Ltd. (MOECO), and Thailand’s PTT Exploration and Production Public Company Limited (PTTEP).

The partners signing the contract on the gas price (Photo: PVN)

According to PetroVietnam general director Nguyen Vu Truong Son, this signing ceremony played an important role in the development strategy of this large-scale project as a basic foundation for partners to give their final investment decision and put the project into implementation.

This project, Son added, has quite a complicated geological structure, which requires exploitation methods similar to gas projects in the Gulf of Thailand.

In July, PetroVietnam submitted a gas field development plan to the Ministry of Industry and Trade, claiming that the exploitation will need up to 1,000 drilling wells and 50-60 oil rigs.

Vietnamese Deputy Minister of Industry and Trade Cao Quoc Hung said Block B-O Mon is one of the two biggest gas projects in Vietnam, with a total investment of $10 billion.

With an annual output of 5 billion cubic metres, the project will supply gas for O Mon Power Centre and Ca Mau gas-power-fertiliser complex.

The Production Sharing Contract of Block B&48/95 was signed in May 1996 and Block 52/97 in October 1999. In February 2015, PetroVietnam successfully acquired Chevron’s assets in these blocks and the pipeline and officially became the project operator.

PetroVietnam seeks pipeline partners

Vietnam’s state-run oil and gas group PetroVietnam announced a bid to entice new investors to the group-led $8 billion Block B-O Mon gas exploitation and pipeline complex following the withdrawal of the US’ oil giant Chevron from the strategic project to fuel future southern gas-fired power plants.

PetroVietnam acquires Chevron’s assets in Vietnam

State-run oil and gas group PetroVietnam last week announced its complete acquisition of US’ Chevron-owned assets and rights in three gas developments in Vietnam, after almost one and a half years of negotiations on the foreign partner’s pull-out.

PetroVietnam set to buy Chevron gasfield stake

The Vietnamese government recently gave PetroVietnam the go-ahead to buy its US partner Chevron’s 42.38 per cent stake in the $4.3 billion Block B and 48/95 gas projects.

By By Bich Ngoc

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