Indonesia’s PT Medco Energi International has acquired a stake in Yemen’s Block 9 oil concession.

Medco signed an agreement with India’s Reliance Exploration & Production to take a 25 per cent interest in the exploration and production block in central Yemen, according to a 6 August statement.

The transaction still requires approval from the Oil and Minerals Ministry. When complete, the block will have four shareholders.

The operator, Canada’s Calvalley Petroleum holds 42.5 per cent, along with 21.5 per cent each to Medco and the local Hood Oil. State-owned Yemen Oil & Gas Company also has a 15 per cent stake.

The 2,234-square-kilometre block is located in the central Hadramaut province, 350km northeast of Sanaa. The block contains four fields with an estimated 58.6 million barrels of oil.

Calvalley resumed crude oil shipments from its Block 9 central processing facility after attacks on its road tankers in March. Several of the contractor’s truck units, hauling approximately 3,800 barrels of crude oil, were damaged by unknown assailants.

Production is loaded on to trucks and sent to an offloading facility at Block 51, which is operated by Nexen, another Canadian oil exploration firm.