ENI and Petronas - Malaysia's State-owned oil company - signed a framework agreement in Kuala Lumpur in recent days that lays the groundwork for the creation of a new joint venture company that will manage assets in Indonesia and Malaysia through a business combination. The new company will be established and operated as a financially self-sufficient entity, and the parties have agreed on the valuations of the assets to be contributed, with a 50:50 ratio. The new business combination will be strategically aligned with ENI's satellite model and follows what has already been achieved with the upstream activities in Norway and Angola with the creation of Var Energy and Azule. “This is another significant step towards the new company that ENI and Petronas have agreed to create in Indonesia and Malaysia,” commented Claudio Descalzi, ENI's Chief Executive Officer, "generating synergies in terms of assets, expertise and financial capabilities, in a transformation model that further strengthens the enormous potential of the two countries. The new company will also have the opportunity to further enhance an incredible portfolio of some 1.4 trillion cubic meters of low-risk exploration potential”.