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edcoEnergi International president director Lukman Mahfoedz says that his company'€™s comeback in Tunisia through the acquisition of eight new oil and gas blocks is a great leap for the company'€™s global expansion, taking advantage of untapped oil and gas resources in the North African country.

After months of talks, publicly listed MedcoEnergi finally secured contracts recently to develop and explore eight new oil and gas blocks in Tunisia.

Medco, through its subsidiary Medco Tunisia Petroleum Ltd., has obtained approval from the Tunisian government and the company'€™s local partners to start activities in eight local oil and gas blocks on Aug. 18, the company said.

Lukman told The Jakarta Post on Friday that the company would sell the output from the blocks on the local Tunisian market, saying that Medco would take advantage of the country'€™s growing energy needs and competitive prices.

'€œThese assets, with lots of potential to grow, will contribute significantly to Tunisia'€™s oil and gas production and MedcoEnergi will be one of the leading E and P [exploration and production] players in Tunisia in the future,'€ he said.

'€œTunisia is far more competitive compared with other countries in North Africa, and even Indonesia as MedcoEnergi'€™s home country. For instance, contractors'€™ share from oil production is only maximum 15 percent, while it can hit around 20 percent in Tunisia.'€

In some of the company'€™s newly acquired blocks, Lukman explained, contractors'€™ share from production could even hit 30 percent.

He said that Tunisia'€™s oil and gas industry was relatively new, dating back only to 1964 when the first giant oil block was found.

MedcoEnergi'€™s data showed that, to date, Tunisia produced 62,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) and 340 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd). Its oil and gas reserves stand at 170 million barrels and 1.52 trillion cubic feet (TCF).

Earlier this year, Medco Tunisia Petroleum signed an acquisition deal for a 100 percent stake in Storm Ventures International (Barbados) Ltd. (SVI) from Storm Ventures International (BVI) Ltd., a subsidiary of Toronto-listed Chinook Energy Inc.

The US$114.03 million acquisition now makes Medco the shareholder of a company owning eight participation interests in oil and gas blocks in Tunisia.

SVI owns four exploration blocks, two development blocks and two producing blocks with working contracts of either 30 or 50 years.

Of the eight blocks, five '€” Adam, Sud Remada, Bir Ben Tartar, Jenein and Borj El Khadra '€” are onshore and are located in the Ghadames Basin.

Meanwhile, three other blocks, namely Cosmos, Hammamet and Yasmin, are located offshore on the northeast coast of Tunisia.

From the new blocks, Medco is expecting to see additional reserves of 12.3 million barrels of oil equivalent (mmboe) and the production of 2,800 boepd.

The company says the Tunisian blocks are promising and it is expecting that development work will allow total production to reach 16,000 boepd, particularly driven by further drilling at Bir Ben Tartar. Also, development work at Cosmos and Yasmin is expected to lift reserves to 12.6 mmboe when it is completed by 2018.

Medco first entered Tunisia in 2007, before deciding to divest its stake in the Anaguid area in 2011.

'€œWith our comeback, Medco is now operating oil and gas in six countries, namely the United States, Libya, Oman, Yemen, Papua New Guinea and Tunisia,'€ Lukman said.