Shell completes sale of Indonesia’s Masela gas stake

SHELL Upstream Overseas Services, a subsidiary of Shell, has completed the sale of a 35 per cent participating interest in Indonesia’s Abadi Masela gas project to Indonesia’s Pertamina and Malaysia’s Petronas, Shell said in a statement on Wednesday (Oct 18).

The three companies signed a sales agreement worth up to US$650 million in July, with Pertamina’s upstream unit Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE) due to take 20 per cent and Petronas Masela a 15 per cent stake in the Indonesian gas block, moving the project forward after years of delay.

Abadi LNG, led by Japan’s Inpex, will use gas from the Masela block, 150 km (93 miles) off the town of Saumlaki in Maluku province, to produce 9.5 million metric tons per year of LNG at its peak, which will be exported from the proposed terminal and 150 million cubic feet of natural gas per day via pipeline to address domestic demand for natural gas.

Authorities previously expected that a final investment decision (FID) for the project could be reached in 2024 and the project could start production in 2029. REUTERS