Caltex allots U$33 million for environmental protection
Caltex allots U$33 million for environmental protection
JAKARTA (JP): The country's largest oil producer PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia (CPI) has budgeted US$33 million this year for environmental protection, an increase of 37 percent over last year's spending.
State-run oil enterprise Pertamina said in a statement here Tuesday that CPI last year spent $24 million for environmental programs, including the reforestation of over 675 hectares of land and the planting of more than 175,000 trees.
Pertamina gave no details on the projected use of the funds allocated for this year but said that CPI will regreen another 1,000 hectares of land and plant 325,000 trees this year.
CPI, one of Pertamina's production-sharing contractors, last year pumped up an average of 720,000 barrels of oil per day, about half of the country's total oil output.
CPI, Pertamina said, has also submitted a second environmental impact analysis on its operations in Riau province to the Environmental Impact Management Agency (Bapedal).
The analysis, commonly known in the industry as an environmental audit, was conducted in the first two weeks of last August under the supervision of a U.S.-based auditing firm, International Loss Control Institute, a subsidiary of Net Sorske Veritas.
The first third-party audit was conducted in 1991 under the direction of the U.S.-based environmental consulting company Arthur D. Little Inc., Pertamina said.
However, Pertamina did not mention anything on last year's environmental dispute between CPI and Sungai Limau villagers, who accused the company of polluting Siak River tributaries in Riau. Pertamina did confirm that CPI's regreening programs will cover Sungai Limau, which, it said, was once a flooded area.
CPI acknowledged in a statement made available here yesterday that the Sungai Limau and Rantau Bais projects are part of the company's programs to make up for tree-covered areas that have suffered from the discharge of water flowing from the company's oil fields.
"With increased environmental awareness, especially among our employees in the field, and with increased communication with the community... CPI is now in a position to respond instantly and to prevent similar cases from occurring in the future," said CPI's president, Baihaki H. Hakim. (rid)