Ranhill Bhd strikes oil

RANHILL Bhd and its joint venture partners are believed to have struck oil in the Citarum block off West Java late last Friday, according to sources familiar with the company.
It is understood that the top brass at Ranhill are pretty upbeat with the prospects at the Citarum block, with the company having struck black gold after only some 6,000 feet of drilling, which substantially beats earlier projections.
StarBiz understands that Ranhill may make an announcement pertaining to the discovery of oil as early as Wednesday to the Bursa Malaysia.
“It’s quite a big oil field, possibly in the region of 350 million barrels, which is almost five times what was initially estimated.
"It’s also quite promising in that the find comes after only about a month of drilling,” a source familiar with the ongoings at Ranhill said.
In mid-May Ranhill announced to the Bursa Malaysia that drilling works had started in Citarum and had indicated that the oil well would be drilled to a depth of some 10,300 feet with prospects estimated to be about 75 million barrels.
Ranhill’s wholly owned unit Ranhill Energy Sdn Bhd, via West Java Energy Pte Ltd, controls as much as 60% of Bumi Parahyangan Ranhill Energia Citarum Pte Ltd, the joint-venture company which has been given the mandate to conduct the drilling and exploratory works.
Other partners in the jointventure company are Mitra Energia Citarum Ltd and Bumi Parahyangan Energi Pte Ltd, with 20% equity each. Mitra Energia Citarum is a unit of Sound Oil Plc.
Ranhill is controlled by its president and chief executive Tan Sri Hamdan Mohamad who has as much as 54% equity held via his private vehicles Ranhill Corp Sdn Bhd and Lambang Optima Sdn Bhd.
Investor interest in Ranhill picked up after it announced the start of drilling works in Citarum, Indonesia.