Government 'loses' data on oil and gas

JAKARTA (JP): The government has lost 30 percent of the data file on the country's oil and gas resources collected by contractors during exploration and exploitation activities, a data management company said on Thursday.

Director of data management company PT Patra Nusa Duta Triyono Hadi said the "missing" files were being traded overseas.

"The 'missing' data files are valued at tens of millions of dollars," he said on the sidelines of a seminar on oil and gas data management.

Patra Nusa has been appointed by the Ministry of Mines and Energy to collect, acquire and publicize the country's oil and gas data.

Triyono said the company was endeavoring to obtain copies of the files.

Company general manager Baskoro told The Jakarta Post, a complete set of data was being traded by a Singapore-based company.

Triyono refused to speculate about the parties responsible for the missing files. However, he said the government had a poor data filing system and their was no mechanism to obligate oil and gas contractors to deliver to the government all the data they collected.

Under the production sharing contracts, oil and gas contractors are required to deliver all data collected during the general survey, exploration and exploitation periods to the government. The information is considered government property.

However, many contractors failed to comply with the rule due to the absence of a regulation-enforcement mechanism.

Baskoro said the government began attaching importance to collecting and managing the data in the early 1990s and launched the Migas Data Management Program in 1995.

The director general of oil and gas at the Ministry of Mines and Energy appointed Patra Duta in 1997 to manage the project under a 10-year contract, and allowed the company to commercially publicize the data to cover storage expenses.

Patra Nusa is majority owned by PT El Nusa Harapan, which is wholly owned by the foundation of the Ministry of Mines and Energy employees and the foundation of the directorate general of oil and gas employees.

In line with the project, then Minister of Mines and Energy IB Sudjana issued in 1997 a decree regarding the acquisition, management and publication of general survey, exploration and exploitation data.

The decree stipulates that oil and gas contractors must submit data obtained from geological, geophysical, geochemical surveys, drilling activities and production to the director general of oil and gas, at the latest, three months after completion of the activities.

Director General of Oil and Gas Rachmat Sudibyo said in a speech at the seminar that a complete file of oil and gas data would attract more investors to Indonesia.

He said collecting the data was a daunting task given that the information was dispersed and much was in poor condition.

Rachmat called on oil and gas contractors to support the project. (jsk)