KUALA LUMPUR (June 8): PETRONAS and Italy’s Eni have set up a joint venture to combine their assets in Malaysia and Indonesia while assessing investments worth US$20 billion (RM81.4 billion) over the next five years.
Searah, a 50:50 joint venture with the Italian supermajor, is designed to operate as an independent entity and supported by a US$6 billion credit facility, the Malaysian national oil company Petroliam Nasional Bhd said in a statement on Monday.
“PETRONAS and Eni have formed synergies in portfolios, technical expertise and regional insights,” the statement read. “This approach enables greater scale, sharper execution and stronger value delivery.”
Searah would be the first and largest of its kind in the region based on the so-called ‘satellite model’ strategy that involves creating separate entities that can independently access capital markets to finance their own growth and be suitable for specialised investors.
The creation of Searah follows an investment agreement signed in November 2025 and the earlier memorandum of understanding announced in February 2025. Since then, all required regulatory, governmental and partner approvals have been obtained.
Searah will have a portfolio of 19 gas-producing and development assets — 14 in Indonesia and five in Malaysia — starting with an initial production base of about 300,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day. The target is to raise it to over 500,000 barrels per day within the next three years.
Further, Searah has in the pipeline development of more than three billion barrels of oil equivalent of discovered resources and other exploration potential.
“Searah aligns with PETRONAS’ intensified focus on exercising greater discipline in developing resources coupled with more agile capital deployment as well as stronger emphasis on sustained value creation across the gas value chain,” said its president Tan Sri Tengku Muhammad Taufik.
For Eni, Searah reflects its “proven satellite strategy that aims at building focused, high-quality businesses that can combine scale, efficiency, and growth,” said its chief executive officer Claudio Descalzi.