Twenty-two groups of foreign oil companies have submitted bids in Thailand's largest round of licensing for petroleum concessions.
There were seven major international oil companies represented in bidding the Thailand's 13th round, its first in 5 years: Occidental Petroleum Corp., Petrofina SA, Royal Dutch/Shell Group, Sun Co., Texaco Inc., Total Cie. Francaise des Petroles, and Unocal Corp.
The rest were smaller foreign firms, mostly from Australia, the U.K., and the U.S.
LICENSING ROUND RESULTS
Altogether, there were 62 bids for some of the 104 blocks offered covering a total of 433,000 sq km.
While locations of the blocks bid on are not disclosed, sources said many companies bid for the same acreage.
Thai officials were pleased with the response, noting the high number of bidders, notably majors, taking part.
"If we could not attract those majors something might have gone wrong on our part," one Thai official said, adding that it demonstrates that Thailand still holds good hydrocarbon potential and that its terms are attractive.
But one industry analyst noted that in the future a good deal of the prospective interest in Thailand by foreign operators, especially from the U.S., might be diverted to other Southeast Asian nations such as Myanmar and Viet Nam, where there are less restrictions for operators and possibly greater hydrocarbon potential.
Currently, U.S. law prohibits U.S. oil companies from investing in Viet Nam, while concerns over human rights issues in Myanmar have deterred other U.S. firms from conducting full scale activities there.
BIDDERS
Bidding groups and the number of blocks sought are:
Coho Resources Inc. four.
Croft Exploration Ltd. 10.
Canadian Occidental Petroleum Ltd. four.
Fina Exploration SA/Texaco international Petroleum Co. one.
Fina/Enterprise Oil plc three.
Texaco International one.
Texaco Exploration Thailand two.
Sun Oil International Inc. one.
Ampol Exploration Ltd. two.
Discovery International Inc. two.
Nomeco Oil & Gas Co. two
International Petroleum Corp. one.
Thaitex Petroleum Co. one.
Unocal Bangkok five.
Total Exploration & Production Thailand two.
Thai Shell Ltd. three.
Thai Shell Development four.
Kirdland Resources Holding/Aberdeen Petroleum plc four.
Cluff Oil plc five.
Hamilton Oil (Thailand) Corp. one.
Maersk Olie OG Gas AS and Pogo Producing Co. of Norway/Rutherford Moran Oil Corp. one.
CTC Minerals Inc. three.
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