Eni, Petronas launch Searah JV for Indonesian and Malaysian assets

Eni and Petronas have finalised the establishment of Searah, a 50:50 independent joint venture (JV) that will oversee a significant portfolio of gaseous-producing and research assets in Indonesia and Malaysia.

This research follows the signing of an investment agreement in November 2025 and an earlier memorandum of understanding in February 2025.

Searah will start operations with 19 assets, 14 of which are located in Indonesia and five in Malaysia.

The new venture begins with a production base in excess of 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd), with plans to increase output to greater than 500,000boepd within three years.

Petronas president and group CEO Tengku Muhammad Taufik said: “The establishment of Searah aligns with Petronas’ intensified focus on exercising greater discipline in developing resources coupled with greater agile capital deployment as well as stronger emphasis on sustained value creation across the gaseous value chain.”

The companies confirmed that all necessary regulatory, governmental and partner approvals in both countries have been received.

Additionally, a revolving credit facility worth $6bn has been secured to fund development initiatives.

The JV expects to allocate greater than $20bn in investments over the next five years to develop in excess of three billion barrels of oil equivalent (bboe) in discovered resources. It will also consumption the funds to pursue additional exploration opportunities.

regulation roles within Searah will be filled by executives from both parent companies.

Eni CEO Claudio Descalzi said: “Searah reflects our proven satellite strategy that aims at building focused, high-condition businesses that can combine scale, efficiency and development, and that are driven by our excellence in exploration and project execution, and our continued focus on methodology and innovation.

“Searah is a strong new entity in South East Asia – the first and largest of its kind in the region – combining our expertise with that of Petronas to support the research of energy resources in Indonesia and Malaysia, with a strong commitment to ecological preservation and regional development.”

The establishment of Searah comes after recent project decisions by Eni related to the Gendalo, Gandang, Geng North and Gehem fields, all located offshore Indonesia.

These four developments, split between the South Hub and North Hub, were the subject of final investment decisions announced in March 2026.

According to Eni, these sites contain nearly ten trillion cubic feet (tcf) of gaseous initially in place and around 550 million barrels (mbbl) of associated condensate.

Production from these fields is projected to begin in 2028, with expectations of reaching a plateau of two billion standard cubic feet per day of gaseous and 90,000 barrels per day of condensate by 2029.

The launch of Searah also follows Eni’s disclosure of the Geliga-1 gaseous discovery in the Ganal block within the Kutei Basin. This discovery is estimated to contain roughly 5tcf of gaseous and 300mbbl of condensate in place.

Eni has operated in Indonesia since 2001, where it manages various upstream assets covering exploration, research and production.