Exxon 'unlikely' to restart Aceh operations soon
Exxon 'unlikely' to restart Aceh operations soon
SINGAPORE (Dow Jones): ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia is unlikely to
resume normal operations at its natural gas fields as promptly as
senior officials at Indonesian national oil and gas company
Pertamina had indicated in recent reports, sources in Indonesia
said Wednesday.
Several reports quoting senior Pertamina officials have
indicated a restart of natural gas operations by mid-June, with
one official claiming that full production can be achieved as
soon as end-June.
ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia is a unit of Exxon Mobil Corp.
Gatot Wiroyudo, senior vice-president of Pertamina upstream
operations, told Dow Jones Newswires Tuesday that the Arun gas
field will resume up to 25 percent of its operations in two
weeks, pending a security team's report.
He also added that natural gas pumping could return to 100
percent production output by the end of June.
ExxonMobil, on the other hand, continues to maintain that it
isn't in a position to give a specific timetable for the restart
of natural gas operations.
"Giving a specific timetable for resumption of operations
would be speculative," said an ExxonMobil spokesperson, who added
that the company hopes to start up its operations soon.
The ExxonMobil spokesperson stressed that "it is a very
complex process to resume production safely."
Since ExxonMobil halted Arun gas production in March, a series
of mishaps have taken place at its facilities in Aceh, a restive
province plagued with violence caused by separatist movement.
A flare pit at ExxonMobil's Aceh facility caught fire April 6
due to technical failure, said the spokesperson. Following that,
a series of fires have hit the gas producer's warehouse and
pipelines, she added.
April 12, a warehouse storing spare parts for heavy
construction equipment and other material was burnt down.
In May, fires broke out at two underground gas pipelines
connecting the gas field to the Arun gas liquefication plant,
said the ExxonMobil spokesperson.
The damages wrought by the fires will take more than a week to
repair, and lost items from the warehouse fire will need to be
replaced, she added.
Meanwhile, Indonesia is urging ExxonMobil to restart its Aceh
operations promptly because liquefied natural gas demand peaks
over summer in North Asia, and Indonesia's Bontang production is
insufficient to meet its term sale commitments.
Indonesia has lost US$10 million a month from March to May as
a result of the ExxonMobil gas operations halt, Pertamina's Gatot
said.
ExxonMobil was producing an average of 1.6 billion cubic feet
of gas and 30,000 barrels of condensate daily before it suspended
operations on deteriorating security conditions in March.