Ali Shariff, manager of Petronas' petroleum resource assessment department (Sarawak), confirmed that the state-owned company is interested in promoting some of its deepwater blocks and that it has already been approached by explorers seeking to drill in areas off the coast of the two East Malaysia states.

In January, the company awarded two contracts to explore for oil in water depths of 1,000m to 2,500m off the coast of Sabah to one of its units and Murphy Oil Corp. The contracts were the 11th and 12th to be awarded under the deepwater terms.