Eni has started gas production from the Merakes Project, located in the East Sepinggan block in the Makassar Strait, deep offshore East Kalimantan, Indonesia.

The Project is a deep-water gas field development at offshore Kutei Basin, with approximately 1,500 meters water depth. The five deep-water subsea wells will guarantee a production capacity of 450 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD), equivalent to 85,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOED). The field has been connected to the Jangkrik Floating Production Unit (FPU), operated by Eni, at a distance of 45 km from Merakes field,  taking advantage of the synergy and optimizing  its producing capacity up to 750 MMSCFD together with the gas flowing from the Jangkrik gas field. The gas produced from Merakes is exported through subsea pipelines to the Jangkrik FPU. After being processed the gas is exported to the Onshore Receiving Facility (ORF) in Senipah via the existing Jangkrik export pipelines.

Merakes gas  will be partially sold to the domestic market and will also contribute to the extension of the life of the Bontang LNG facility, one of the most reliable LNG processing plants in the world, that supplies LNG to both the domestic and export markets.

Eni’s CEO Claudio Descalzi commented: “We are really proud of the start-up of Merakes, a project which is synergetic with existing operated facilities and is the result of the fruitful collaboration with our partners and with the Indonesian authorities. Merakes is one of Eni key projects in 2021. It will support the growth of gas production, in line with Eni strategic goals.”

Eni is the operator of East Sepinggan block with an 65% share ownership through its affiliate, Eni East Sepinggan Ltd.; the other partners are Neptune Energy East Sepinggan B.V. with 20% shareand PT Pertamina Hulu Energi with the remaining 15% share. On 11 December 2018, the production sharing contract scheme for the East Sepinggan block was changed into Gross Split PSC to support the efficiency of oil and gas investment in Indonesia.

Eni has been operating in Indonesia since 2001, where has a large portfolio of assets in exploration, production and development.