Russian oil and gas company Zarubezhneft and its partners are set to begin the development of the oil ad gas Block 09-2/09 in the Cuu Long Basin in Vietnamese waters, about 135 km south-east from Vungtau city.

Currently, the offshore Vietnamese block is in the second stage of the prospecting and exploration period, which expires on 20 August 2022.

During the operations at Block 09-2/09, a large scope of geologic and geophysical works were carried out, which includes drilling of nine exploration and appraisal wells. These activities led to the discovery of two oil and gas fields, namely Kinh Ngu Trang (White Whale) and Kinh Ngu Trang Nam (South White Whale).

According to Zarubezhneft, the in-place commercial oil and gas reserves of the two oil and gas fields have a combined 212 million barrels of oil and 10.2 billion m3 of gas.

The Russian oil and gas company plans to develop Block 09-2/09 by utilizing the infrastructure of Block 09-1.

Meanwhile, the Vietnamese industry and trade ministry issued an adjusted investment license for Block 09-2/09  as per which Vietsovpetro will be the operator with 40% stake, Zarubezhneft will have a 30% stake, while Petrovietnam Exploration and Production will own the remaining stake of 30%.

Sergey Kudryashov – General Director of Zarubezhneft said: “It should be mentioned that the issue of the adjusted investment license is the result of focused efforts to expand the area of Zarubezhneft’s activities and increasing the resource base in Vietnam through implementation on new oil and gas projects.”

  Block 09-1, Block 09-2/09, Cuu Long Basin, Petrovietnam, Sergey Kudryashov, Vietnam, Vietsovpetro, Zarubezhneft