A group of oil firms including PetroVietnam and Thailand's PTT Exploration plans to spend $3 billion to develop a new oil block in Algeria, a Petrovietnam official said.

“The investment plan is in place and we aim to have commercial production in 2009,” the official of Petrovietnam Investment and Development Co (PIDC), Petrovietnam's investment arm, said.
The block, jointly owned by Petrovietnam, PTT Exploration and Algeria's Sonatrach, could hold up to 2 billion barrels of crude oil, PIDC officials have said.
PIDC said tests at the oil block, located near Touggourt, flowed 5,120 barrels of crude oil per day and 4.8 million cubic feet per day of natural gas.
PTT Exploration, 62.84 per cent owned by Thailand's biggest energy firm PTT, has a 35-per cent interest in the project, which covers an area of 6,471 square km
PIDC holds a 40-per cent stake and the remaining 25 per cent belongs to Sonatrach, Algeria's state oil and gas company.