Yemen awards PSAs for eight oil blocks

SANAA, Dec 9 (Reuters) Yemen said on Saturday it awarded five international oil companies production sharing agreements on eight blocks in the non-OPEC oil producer.

Oil Minister Khaled Mahfoudh Bahah told reporters that Austria's OMV won a PSA for block 29 while India's Gujarat State Petroleum Corp. was awarded a PSA for blocks 19, 28 and 57.

The oil ministry also signed a deal with Norway's DNO for block 84 and with Indonesia's PT Medco Energi International for blocks 82 and 83, Bahah said.

Britain's Burren Energy won a PSA for block 17.

The minister said the companies were expected to invest an initial million on exploration work on the blocks.

In March, Yemen pre-qualified 34 firms in a third bid tender to explore and produce oil in 14 blocks in the Arab country.

Bahah had said the winners would be announced in December and that most of the blocks on offer were onshore blocks.

Yemen is pumping around 380,000 barrels per day of crude oil, down from around 470,000 bpd in 2002 due to declining production at mature fields.

Sanaa has said it hopes high oil prices will encourage international energy companies to explore onshore and offshore areas as Yemen tries to reverse the decline in crude output.

REUTERS SBA RN2109