UK-listed Baron Oil has boosted its stake in the Chuditch gas discovery and surrounding acreage offshore East Timor.
The company said on 23 April that is has increased its shareholding in SundaGas from 33.33% to 85%. This indirectly increased its share of the Chuditch production-sharing contract (PSC), awarded to SundaGas in November 2019, from 25% to 63.75%, offshore East Timor, also known as Timor Leste.
“Everything is in place to allow SundaGas Banda to undertake the PSC technical work programme activities, especially the critical 3D seismic reprocessing,” Andy Yeo, chief executive of Baron said in a statement. “These works will enable an up-to-date assessment of the true potential of the Chuditch discovery and of the viability of drilling an appraisal well and further exploration wells in a timely manner.”
The Chuditch PSC is located about 185 km south of Timor-Leste, 100 km east of the producing Bayu-Undan field and 50 km south of the Greater Sunrise field. It covers an area of around 3,571 square km, in water depths of 50-100 metres, and holds the Chuditch-1 gas discovery, drilled by Shell in 1998.