Giant oil, gas firms maintain normal ops

JAKARTA (JP): Two giant U.S.-based oil companies said that they have maintained normal levels of production at their Indonesian operations despite Tuesday's terrorist attacks in New York and Washington.

"Our production has been normal but we will continue to monitor the security condition here," ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia Inc. spokeswoman Julia Tumengkol told The Jakarta Post on Friday

The devastating terrorist attacks on the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York and the Pentagon building in Washington heightened fears that U.S. interests in other parts of the would were at risk of similar attacks.

Julia did not say whether Exxon had beefed up security following the attacks.

Exxon has a big gas operation in the strife-torn province of Aceh, which was temporarily shut down recently due to security concerns as local separatist guerrillas intensified pressure.

Exxon resumed the operation of two clusters last month.

Meanwhile, state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina's production sharing management directorate spokesman Sidick Nitikusuma told the Post that Pertamina had not implemented any special security measures because of the terror attacks on the U.S..

"We did not take any special measures. The police had already heightened security around the oil fields," Sidick said.

National Police Chief Gen. Surojo Bimantoro had earlier instructed the police to increase security for all American citizens and their related assets in the country.

Meanwhile, PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia (CPI), the country's largest crude oil producer, also said that its production in the Riau operation remained at a normal level.

"There is no special action at Caltex now, everything is running as usual," Caltex staff relations officer Renville Almatsier told the Post.

He said there were no additional security personnel deployed at Caltex's local operations.

"We welcome the move by police to beef up security in the Riau area," he said.

Caltex, a joint venture between Chevron Corp and Texaco Inc., last month said its oil output in Riau had dropped by 40,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 660,000 bpd mainly as a result of equipment theft.

CPI has four sites in the Riau province, namely Rokan, Coastal Plain Pekan Baru (CPP), Mountain Front Kuantan (MFK) and the Siak blocks.(11/iwa)