Mubadala Petroleum, a unit of Mubadala Development, has served a notice of default on one of its partners in an offshore Thailand oil development for about US$27 million in back payments, a company spokesman said on Thursday.
The Mubadala Petroleum official said that Northern Gulf Petroleum (NGP) was formally served on March 20 that it was in default on the payments, which were due for its share of expenses on the Manora development in the Gulf of Thailand, one of seven oil and gas concessions Mubadala has in Thailand.
The overdue payments first came to light in an announcement to the Australian stock exchange by Tap Oil, the management of which is in a bitter dispute with the company’s largest shareholder, Chatchai Yenbamroong, the chairman of TPP Group.
Mr Yenbamroong, who controls NGP, recently increased his shareholding in Tap Oil and has been trying to replace to top managers with ones of his choosing, having accused Tap’s managers of wasting millions of dollars on drilling dry holes while exiting prospects that later turned out to be productive.
A Mubadala spokesman confirmed all of the details put out in statement by Tap Oil, which owns 30 per cent of the Manora concession.
NGP owns 10 per cent of Manora, and Mubadala operates the field and owns the remaining 60 per cent.
“We can confirm that what Tap Oil has said is correct, and we are operating exactly in line with the joint operating agreement,” the Mubadala spokesman said.
That agreement stipulates that NGP has already lost its entitlement to attend and vote at operating committee meetings for Manora and is prevented from receiving any information on the its operation.
This month, NGP’s share of Manora crude will be shared among Mubadala and Tap Oil to cover the defaulted payments.
If NGP has not paid its expenses by 60 days after the default notice was served, its interest in Manora will be transferred to Mubadala and Tap Oil.
Mubadala Petroleum has an interest in seven blocks in Thailand and is the operator for four of them. Manora started producing last November at 2,000 barrels per day and is expected to peak at 15,000 bpd and run for about 10 years. It has estimated reserves of up to 20 million barrels.
The South East Asia region is one of the most important for Mubadala, and the company also has offshore interests in maritime territory of Vietnam, Malaysia and Indonesia.
Although the company does not report financial results, its parent reported in its annual results on Thursday that Mubadala Petroleum took a Dh1.9 billion charge for impairment of assets in South East Asia and the Middle East, reflecting the lower income expected from those oil and gasfields because of the 50 per cent drop in oil prices since last June.
amcauley@thenational.ae
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