Arco produces 1b barrel oil

Arco produces 1b barrel oil

JAKARTA (JP): Arco Indonesia marked yesterday its one
billionth barrel of oil produced from its offshore Ardjuna field
in the Java Sea.

Crude oil has been produced at this field since operations
started under a production-sharing contract with the state-owned
Pertamina in 1972.

"When we started nobody believed the field would be able to
supply 1 billion barrels of oil," the company president Leon
Codron said yesterday.

Codron said Arco Indonesia, a subsidiary of the U.S.-based
Arco International Oil and Gas Co., now owned 12 licenses to
explore and produce gas and oil, and had participated in 426
exploration wells.

The licenses were for seven production sharing contracts,
including two with the offshore northwest Java and Arco Bali
North.

It also held five exploration production contracts, and so far
had only had four discoveries, he said. (das)