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By Dan Murtaugh and Hannah Dormido
January 13, 2019, 8:00 PM EST
Updated on January 14, 2019, 12:59 AM EST
Pakistan, Indonesia and PNG offer oil, gas prospects: WoodMac
Energy explorers are getting more ambitious in Asia-Pacific
A pumpjack operates in Baku. Photographer: Taylor Weidman/Bloomberg
After a few fallow years, oil and gas drillers may be poised to unearth new reserves in the Asia-Pacific, according to energy consultant Wood Mackenzie Ltd.
Some of the world’s biggest explorers are drilling wildcat wells in places like Pakistan, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea this year, hoping to discover the massive deepwater finds that have largely been missing from the region since firms slashed spending following the 2014 oil price crash.
“Explorers are getting a little bit more ambitious in this part of the world,” Andrew Harwood, the consultancy’s Asia-Pacific upstream research director, said in an interview in Singapore. “These are huge companies with global portfolios; they’re not spending the money to drill unless they have a reason to be excited.”
Wood Mackenzie expects mergers and acquisition spending in the region to total about $8 billion in 2019 after growing 60 percent to $8.7 billion 2018. Activity will be focused around divestments in Southeast Asia by companies that want to focus spending on U.S. shale.
Here’s a closer look at the three Asia-Pacific prospects Wood Mackenzie is paying the most attention to:
Pakistan
A group including Eni SpA and Exxon Mobil Corp. will start drilling the Kekra-1 well this month in deepwater south of Pakistan. The country’s onshore natural gas production has been declining after years of under-investment, leading to the start of liquefied natural gas imports in recent years. Growing demand for the fuel has made the drillers more confident that they’ll be able to sell any gas from a sizable development, Harwood said.
