Salamander Energy has secured conditional approval of its environmental impact assessment (EIA) for its exploration drilling offshore Thailand.
The company plans to drill 20 locations in the G4/50 licence located in the Greater Bualuang area of the Gulf of Thailand.
Of the 20 locations Salamander initially included in the EIA, 18 have been approved.
The approval is subject to the company updating its oil spill response modelling to account for the removal of two potential drilling locations and communicating the removal of the two locations to local stakeholders.
The Thai authorities have also stipulated technical adjustments to the EIA drafting.
Salamander said the 18 locations include all of its top ranked prospects in the G4/50 licence with exploration drilling planned to begin by the end of this year.
“Now that we have the EIA’s in hand we look forward to a low-cost, but high-impact, exploration drilling programme over the next twelve months.”
Asia-focused independent exploration and production firm Salamander has several licences spread across Indonesia and Thailand.
The company expects its average daily production this year to be between 13,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) and 16,000 boepd.
Salamander, which operates more than 80% of its production, is undertaking several exploration opportunities in Central Kalimantan and offshore East Kalimantan.
