Eni completes sale of 20% in East Sepinggan area to Neptune Energy

Eni’s subsidiary Eni East Sepinggan has wrapped up its previously announced sale of a 20% stake in the East Sepinggan area, offshore Indonesia, which contains the Merakes development and Merakes East discovery, to Neptune Energy Group’s subsidiary Neptune Energy East Sepinggan.

Financial details of the deal that was announced in July 2019 remained to be undisclosed.

Eni has brought down its stake in the offshore Indonesian block to 65% where it will continue to be the operator. The deal marks the entry of Neptune Energy in the East Sepinggan area.

The remaining 15% stake in the offshore Indonesian block is held by Pertamina Hulu Energi East Sepinggan.

Eni said that the completion of the deal with Neptune Energy boosts their cooperation in Indonesia, where they are already across various upstream projects like the Muara Bakau area, which contains the Jangkrik field in the Kutei Basin located offshore East Kalimantan. Eni is the joint venture operator in the Muara Bakau area with a stake of 55%.

Eni completes sale of 20% in East Sepinggan area to Neptune Energy. Photo courtesy of Federico Leva/Wikipedia.org.

In the East Sepinggan area, the Merakes development project is being taken up by the partners, which involves the drilling and construction of subsea wells alongside a dedicated transportation system in 1,500m water depth to connect the production to the Jangkrik Floating Production Unit (FPU), located 35 km in the northeast direction.

The gas produced from the Merakes development project will be transported to the Bontang LNG plant by using all the other existing facilities of the Jangkrik field and also the East Kalimantan transportation network. According to Eni, the new production will also help towards extending the life of the Bontang LNG plant.

Eni stated: “This transaction confirms once again the success of Eni’s “dual exploration” strategy, which consists of selling minority stakes in its exploration successes, while maintaining control and operatorship, in parallel to the fast track development of discovered reserves. Through this strategy, which allows accelerated monetization of the exploration successes, Eni has been able to cash in more than $10 billion from 2013 to 2019.”

The Italian oil and gas giant has been active in Indonesia since 2001 and presently claims to have a huge portfolio of assets in exploration, production and development. Eni’s production activities in Indonesia are located in the Kutei Basin, East Kalimantan, and through the Jangkrik field, in the Muara Bakau working area, which produces over 600 mmscfd.