PETRONAS, through its wholly-owned subsidiary PETRONAS Carigali Overseas Sdn Bhd (PCOSB), has entered into a Petroleum Agreement and Association Contract with the Office National de Recherches et d'Explorations Pétrolières (ONAREP), the national oil company of Morocco, for an offshore deepwater Rabat-Sale Haute Mer area in Morocco.
The Agreement and the Contract were signed today in Rabat by PETRONAS' President & Chief Executive Officer Tan Sri Dato' Sri Mohd Hassan Marican and ONAREP's Director General Madame Amina Benkhadra. The Rabat-Sale Haute Mer block covers an area of 14,000 square kilometres and is located in water depth of between 1,000 and 4,000 metres.
Under the Agreement, PCOSB will acquire and process 2,000 kilometres of new
2D seismic data and drill one exploration well in the Initial Period of three years. Subsequently, PCOSB will acquire and process 1,000 kilometers of new
2D seismic data and drill another exploration well in the First Extension Period of two years, and then acquire and process another 1,000 kilometres of new
2D seismic data and drill one more exploration well in the subsequent Second Extension Period of three years.
PCOSB is the operator of the Block with 75 per cent equity and the remaining equity of 25 per cent is held by ONAREP.
The signing of the Petroleum Agreement and Association Contract marks another milestone for PETRONAS' in Morocco, where it already has interest in the Tiznit Block. Apart from Morocco, PETRONAS is actively engaged in the upstream operations in other countries in northern Africa.
