Santos Ltd. has acquired 20% interest in a deepwater permit offshore Sabah, Malaysia. The company will take 10% from each of Japan’s Inpex and operator JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration for Block R.
The block, which covers 673 sq km and lies in 100-1,400 m of water, is close to Murphy Oil’s existing Kikeh oil field and Shell’s Gumusut-Kakap oil field.
Three wildcat wells are planned for the permit early this year.
JX Nippon and Inpex now have 27.5% each, with Petronas 25% and Santos 20%.