Thailand's largest state-owned oil and gas producer PTT Public Company is scouting for acquisitions as valuations have cheapened, according to its chief executive.
Tevin Vongvanich, who is also the president of PTT, told CNBC's "Managing Asia" that now was a good time to acquire companies as the cash balance of the company, and its subsidiaries, are healthy at the moment.
"The prices of upstream assets have come down quite a lot. We are thinking of entering into the unconventional, the shale oil business in the U.S. or elsewhere," he said.
"We feel that that is one area, well actually one of the main reasons for this drop in oil prices is that the development of new technology, the fracking technology, that allowed us to recover this oil. So we need to get into that kind of business for the long term."
He reckons oil prices could reach $50 a barrel eventually to keep pace with growing consumption of cheap oil, but the timing remains uncertain. "We have seen, in Thailand, in December, consumption of gasoline in itself increase by 10 percent in a month," he said. "That shows the consumer may be less aware or cautious of spending on energy, because it is so cheap."