Caltex to maintain current output level

Caltex to maintain current output level

JAKARTA (JP): PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, state oil company
Pertamina's major production sharing contractor, has ruled out
any plans to raise its crude-oil output despite an increase in
the country's crude-oil production quota.

Caltex senior executive Djati Susetya said in Pekanbaru on
Saturday that the company's crude-oil production would be
maintained at the current level of 740,000 barrel per day (bpd).

He said Caltex could not benefit from the rise in the
country's oil-production quota because raising production would
require the company to increase its investment.

"We will just continue our production activities at the Duri
and Minas fields", he was quoted as saying by Antara news agency.

The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC)
agreed in a meeting in Vienna late last month to raise total
output from 1.42 million bpd to 21.06 million beginning this
month.

Indonesia is, under the agreement, required to increase its
production to 1.28 million bpd from 1.18 million.

Meanwhile, PT Medco Energi International, another crude-oil
producer, said on Saturday it would increase the crude oil output
by 30 percent to 740,000 bpd this year from about 560,000 at
present.

Medco's president, Jhon S. Karamoy, said at Palu, Central
Sulawesi, that the company would optimize production activities
at its oil fields in Indonesia and Myanmar in a bid to reach the
production target.

He also said the company would begin exploration activities
soon at its oil and gas fields at Senoro and Toili in Benggai,
Central Sulawesi.

Karamoy said that exploration at the gas fields in Senoro,
which have gas reserves of about 1.5 trillion cubic feet, would
start soon.

"The fields are expected to start commercial production by
2002, and we hope the gas fields will be able to produce about
200 million cubic feet a year," he said.

He said that the 30-year contract, which was in the
preparation process, would produce about 200 million cubic feet
of natural gas per year from the 475 square-meter field
exploration.

PT Inco, an Indonesian subsidiary of a Canadian nickel
producer, is one of several potential buyers of the gas. Earlier
reports state that the nickel producer would buy between 50
million cubic feet and 80 million cubic feet of gas a year from
Medco. (07)