SINGAPORE -(Dow Jones)- Hess Corp. (HES) hopes to increase production of natural gas in Southeast Asia to 100,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day within the next five years, according to Aidan McKay, the company's vice president of production in the region. Hess currently produces the equivalent of about 85,000 barrels a day of mostly natural gas in Southeast Asia. Over the next five years, the company will more than triple its output from 2005, when it produced only 32,000 barrels a day in the region, he said on the sidelines of the Oil & Gas Outlook Asia conference in Singapore. Globally, the company produces about 381,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day of crude oil and natural gas, he said. Crude oil accounts for about 60% of production and gas the remaining 40%, but if exploration plans are successful, output will gradually shift to predominantly gas, he said, without giving a time frame. Hess supplies natural gas to domestic markets in Malaysia, Thailand and Indonesia. It plans to continue exploring for gas off the coasts of those countries, and also around Brunei, McKay said. By Wayne Ma, Dow Jones Newswires; +65 6415 4065; wayne.ma@dowjones.com
