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 BRUNEI
Southeast Asia
The first exploration well in Brunei was drilled in
1989 near the capital, Bandar Seri Begawan followed by the first
discovery, Belait-2 in 1914, across the border from Malaysia’s Miri
field.
In 1929 Brunei’s only significant onshore field, the 1 Bn
Bbl Seria field, was discovered and developed but no further discoveries
were made until the 1960s after Brunei’s boundaries had been extended to
include the continental shelf in 1954.
 The limited offshore waters of Brunei overlie Neogene
deltaic sandstones of the Baram River from which over 12 oil and gas
fields are in production. Several undeveloped discoveries also exist.
Brunei Shell Petroleum (BSP) is by far the largest
operator with offshore production coming primarily from the Southwest
Ampa and Champion fields. BSP drilled the first offshore well in 1957
from a fixed platform. It was dry but when mobile drilling rigs were
introduced the first discovery, Baram-1, was drilled in 1963.
The company then made a series of discoveries including
the giant SW Ampa field, 15 km offshore from Seria also in 1963. Between
1966 and 1968 Shell discovered the nearby West Lutong, Takau, Baronia,
Baram-B and Betty fields. In 1970 the giant Champion field, 40 kms from
the coast near the Sabah border was discovered followed by other small
discoveries in this area including Bakau, Bokor, Fairley Baram, Iron
Duke and Magpie.
The Samarang, Gannet and Egret fields were discovered
near SW Ampa also in the 1970s. After abandonments Shell operates 7
offshore fields plus Seria and Rasua onshore. Exploration declined in
the 1980s after output was cut back deliberately to extend the life of
the fields and to improve recovery rates.
In 1989 Elf discovered the Maharaja Lela Jamalulalam
field in Block B, straddling the border with Sabah, and this field is
operated by Total, coming onstream in 1999. In 1990 the Peragam gas
field was also discovered below the Champion field followed by the Bugan
and Selangkir gas fields in 1993 and 1995 respectively.
Total made a gas/condensate discovery in early 2003 below
producing reservoirs of the Maharaja Lela Jamalulalam field. Oil and gas
from all the developed fields are transported via a gathering system to
Brunei Shell’s Seria oil terminal and Lumut LNG plant in southwest
Brunei.
Brunei, despite its small size, became Asia’s first LNG
exporter in 1972 and is the 4th largest in the world. Besides exports,
Brunei wants to use its gas locally and develop domestic petrochemicals
and energy-intensive industries.
The deepwater Blocks J and K, awarded to Total and Shell
in 2002, have potential turbidite reservoirs which may contain
gas/condensate and, to a lesser extent, oil accumulations. Similar
gas/condensate plays have been drilled in the Merpati field in 400 m of
water closer to shore in Brunei and in the Merah Basar field in Sabah.
The geology, infrastructure and forthcoming exploration programmes in
deep waters suggest that these areas could become significant provinces
in the future however Brunei and Malaysia need to resolve their border
dispute in the area, which is delaying drilling.
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