Eni and Petronas, Malaysia's state-owned oil company, on Monday announced the official establishment of Searah, a new 50/50 independent joint venture bringing together key assets in Indonesia and Malaysia.
    The announcement states that the new operator comes just seven months after the signing of the investment agreement on November 3, 2025, and 16 months after the memorandum of understanding announced in February 2025.
    Searah combines complementary portfolios, expertise, and regional experience with the goal, the statement continues, of ensuring long-term value creation and operational excellence in Indonesia and Malaysia.
    With a portfolio of 19 gas production and development assets—14 in Indonesia and 5 in Malaysia—Searah will have initial production of over 300,000 boe/d, with the goal of exceeding 500,000 boe/d of sustainable production within the next three years.
    All required regulatory, government, and partner approvals have been obtained in both Malaysia and Indonesia, and all conditions precedent have been satisfied.
    "Searah reflects our consolidated satellite strategy, aimed at creating focused, high-quality businesses that combine scale, efficiency, and growth, driven by our excellence in exploration and project execution, as well as our relentless focus on technology and innovation," said Claudio Descalzi, CEO of Eni.
    "Searah is a new, robust entity in Southeast Asia—the first and largest of its kind in the region—combining our expertise with Petronas' to support the development of energy resources in Indonesia and Malaysia, with a strong commitment to environmental protection and local growth," he added.
    "The establishment of Searah is in line with Petronas' growing focus on greater discipline in resource development, combined with more agile capital deployment and a greater emphasis on sustainable value creation across the entire gas value chain," added Tengku Muhammad Taufik, Chairman and CEO of Petronas.
    "By leveraging the complementary portfolios and capabilities of Petronas and Eni, Searah aims to match the operational depth, financial resilience, and growth capacity of the two partners to reliably and responsibly address the region's growing energy needs," he continued, "while contributing to the long-term security of supply in Indonesia and Malaysia." A $6 billion revolving credit facility was successfully secured, the statement reads, "a testament to the strong confidence of financial markets in financing Searah's growth plans, which envisage investments of over $20 billion over the next five years.
    These investments will support the development of over 3 billion barrels of oil equivalent (bbl) of discovered resources and enable the realisation of an additional exploration potential of several billion boe."
   

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