TANGERANG, Indonesia, May 14 (Reuters) - Indonesia has launched its first oil and gas auction this year with an offering of five oil and gas blocks, energy ministry senior official Dadan Kusdiana said on Tuesday.
Among the sites offered were the Pesut Mahakam onshore block in East Kalimantan province with an estimated resources of 1.1 trillion cubic feet of gas, and Central Andaman exploration blocks with estimated resources of 100 million barrels of oil and 500 billion cubic feet gas, he said.
The Melati block in Sulawesi, which has both onshore and offshore fields with an estimated gas resource of 4.7 trillion cubic feet and 850 million barrels of oil, was also included in the auction announcement.
The government plans to offered up to ten new blocks in 2024, an official said earlier this year, potentially including gas blocks in northern Sumatra region.
United Arab Emirates' Mubadala said in December it had discovered a major deep-sea gas reserve through the Layaran-1 well in the South Andaman Block, off northern Sumatra. (Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy, Bernadette Christina Munthe; Editing by John Mair)
