The Malaysia-Thailand Joint Development Area is an area of 7,250 km2 in the Gulf of Thailand, created as an intermediate measure to exploit natural resources in the seabed or continental plateaus operated by the two countries and share revenue equally. The agreement does not end the legal right of both countries to the territory. This is one of the first requests for joint development of an agreement reached on 21 February 1979 in Chiang Mai, Thailand, for the creation of the Common Development Area and the Land Management Authority. On 30 May 1990, an agreement was reached in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, for the creation of the Joint Development Authority. Malaysia-Thailand Joint Authority Act 1990[Act 440] Malaysia-Thailand Joint Authority (Payments of Royalty and Other Proceeds from Petroleum Production to the Governments) Regulations 2004 [P.U. (A) 422/04] Malaysia-Thailand Joint Authority (Standards of Petroleum Operations) (Amendment) Regulations 2003 [P.U. (A) 366/03] The joint development area is managed by the Malaysia-Thailand Joint Authority on behalf of both governments. The Authority is recognized as a legal entity in both countries and has all the rights to use and develop non-living natural resources in the common development area. The authority was founded in 1991 and is headquartered in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. Twenty-two gas fields were reported to the JDA. By the end of 2007, approximately 8.5 trillion feet of standard body feet of proven and probable gas reserves had been discovered in the 22 fields. Some of these fields also have smaller oil accumulations. The fields are: Procedure for drilling operations 14 Dec 2009 – issued in accordance with the Production Sharing Agreement (PSC) The common development area was initially divided into three blocks for exploration.
These are blocks A-18 (central part of the JDA), B-17 (north part) and C-19 (south part). On 21 April 1994, two production allocation contracts (PSCs) were awarded by the Malaysia-Thailand Joint Authority (MTJA) to two groups of companies. Each group of contractors has also set up operational companies for exploration. They were: Agreement between the Government of Malaysia and the Government of the Kingdom of Thailand The period of exploration expired on 20 April 2002 and the aforementioned contractors kept the gas fields that held land in their respective blocks, but they had to abandon areas that were not considered gas deposits that retained areas to retain the MTJA. The abandoned areas of the JDA (approximately 3,475 km2) have been transformed into a new block called Block B-17-01.