KUALA LUMPUR (Sept 25): Bumi Armada Bhd announced that its wholly owned subsidiary Armada Akia BV has signed a production sharing contract (PSC) with the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources of Indonesia for exploration in the Tarakan Basin of the North Kalimantan province of Indonesia (Akia PSC).

In a local bourse filing on Monday, the oil and gas service provider said its co-bidder for the project, Pexco Tarakan NV, has also entered into the exploration agreement.

According to the group, the production sharing contract covers an area of 8,394 square kilometres and contains the Aster and Tulip oil and gas discoveries.

“The Tulip discovery has an estimated recoverable resource of 860 BCF (billion cubic feet) of gas and 60 MMboe (million barrels of oil equivalent) of oil and condensate. Plans are to acquire new 3D seismic over the Tulip discovery to evaluate the potential for a fast-track development.

“The water depth at the Tulip discovery is 800m (metres) and Bumi Armada would provide and operate a floating, production, storage and operation (FPSO), and a floating liquid natural gas (FLNG) or gas pipeline for the development.

“This leverages Bumi Armada’s core expertise of providing and operating floating production systems,” it said.

The Pexco group is an independent upstream exploration and production group of companies, Bumi Armada said. The group currently operates two production sharing contracts in Indonesia.

Shares in Bumi Armada closed 1.5 sen or 2.65% lower to 55 sen on Monday, giving it a market capitalisation of RM4.78 billion.