On 03/11/2016, at HCMC office of Murphy, representatives of PVEP and Murphy Cuu Long Bac Oil Co., Ltd. signed an agreement to amend PSC and the agreement for transfer of 21.54% participating interest of PVEP in the Block 15-1/05 for Murphy Cuu Long Bac Oil Co., Ltd.
 

President & CEO Ngo Huu Hai and leaders of Murphy Oil, SK signed the agreements in the presence of the Chairman Hoang Ngoc Dang and representatives of the parties

Attending the signing ceremony were Dr. Hoang Ngoc Dang - Party Secretary, Chairman of the Board of members; Dr. Ngo Huu Hai - President & CEO; Mr. Pham Nhu Khanh - Vice President; and leaders of HCMC Branch of PVEP. Regarding partners there were Mr. Mark Jones - Deputy General Director and Director of Murphy in Vietnam and Mr. JD Yang - Branch Manager of SK Innovation in Ho Chi Minh City representing the two partners.

Murphy Oil and Gas Company (USA) has strong technologies and experience for special oil and gas objects such as the new, deep-water offshore areas to help minimize the time, cost of exploration as well as increase production of oil and gas recovery.
Murphy Oil considers Vietnam's market a potential region with long-term development scale and strategy and attaches great importance to cooperation with Vietnam Oil and Gas Group and PVEP. In addition to paying attention to a number of opportunities for cooperation such as the projects to develop gas from Block B, a number of blocks in the Malay-Tho Chu field, Cuu Long field, Murphy Oil much welcomes Petrovietnam and PVEP to participate in the projects in the Gulf of Mexico.
With the present low oil prices (40-50 USD/barrel) and the possibility of continuation in the following years, the development of small and marginal fields meets with difficulties and requires solutions and experience in development. Murphy is a partner with extensive experience in this field as it has made a lot of success in the development of oil / gas in Sarawak, Malaysia. The cooperation with partners with financial strength and experience in developing small and marginal fields will also help share risk, increase efficiency of investment and create conditions for further exploration and appraisal for expansion . 
The transfer of participating interests in a number of projects is also one of the solutions aiming to restructure PVEP to recover costs, reduce the investment burden, enhance operational efficiency and ensure resources for the development of the Corporation, overcome the difficulties of the international oil and gas industry in the context of sharply lower oil prices today. 
Contractor Murphy is investing in projects of Block 144 & 145, 11-2/11, offshore Vietnam. This transfer transaction will create favorable momentum for the next operation of Murphy in the orientation of expanding investment in Vietnam market. For PVEP, continuing to shake hands with foreign partners, being a companion with them in projects in Vietnam's continental shelf is an important economic - political success. 
With the newly signed agreements, PVEP and Murphy will continue to complete the prescribed legal procedures and both sides hope to achieve success in the exploration operations and development of projects in the near future.
Also at the ceremony, representatives of the two partners Murphy and SK Innovation also signed an agreement to transfer the participating interests in some projects between the two sides.

- Murphy Oil Corporation (hereinafter referred to as "Murphy") began operations in the 1950s. For over 60 years, Murphy has become an independent oil and gas company with extensive capacities and range of operations covering four main areas being the Gulf of Mexico (USA, Canada), Namibia, South East Asia (Malaysia, Vietnam, Indonesia, Brunei) and Australia. Murphy is based in El Dorado, Arkansas, United States with 1,258 employees (as of 31/12 2015). By the end of 2015, Murphy had oil and gas reserve of approximately 774 million barrels of oil equivalent. The average production output reached over 207 thousand barrel of oil equivalent/day in which the production output of oil, condensate and natural gas liquids is about 137 thousand barrels/day.
- It is estimated that the total production output of Murphy in 2016 reached about 180,000-185,000 barrels of oil equivalent/day, down from the previous year mainly due to lower investment costs by more than 70% worldwide due to low oil prices.

By: PVEP