Govt urged to follow up Fujian contract
Govt urged to follow up Fujian contract
The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
A legislator urged the government on Thursday to quickly
follow up on China's offer for Indonesia to supply liquefied
natural gas (LNG) to the Chinese province of Fujian.
Joseph Umarhadi of the PDI Perjuangan faction said the
government should set up a task force soon for the supply of LNG
to Fujian and send the members of it to talk to the Chinese
government.
Otherwise, Joseph said, the Chinese government might think
Indonesia was not taking the offer seriously.
"Don't talk about volume right now. Let's think about how we
can supply LNG to the country," Yoseph said.
China awarded Indonesia last Thursday with a contract to
supply 2.5 million metric tons of LNG per year to Fujian, after
Indonesia failed to win a hotly contested deal to supply the
commodity to Guangdong province. That deal was won by an
Australian consortium, Australian LNG, led by Australian energy
giant Woodside Petroleum Ltd., which will supply some 3 million
metric tons of LNG per year over a 25-year period.
The LNG for Fujian will come from the Tangguh LNG project in
Papua province, Indonesia, operated by Anglo-American energy
giant BP Plc. The LNG supply to Fujian is scheduled to commence
in 2006.
The potential revenue to be received by BP and the Indonesian
government from the sale of LNG to China is unknown, as details
of the supply contract are not yet available.
In a news conference held last Friday, Minister of Energy and
Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the government had set
up a task force to follow up on the Chinese offer and the task
force would go to China immediately to get clear information
about the offer.
The team comprises officials from the Ministry of Energy and
Mineral Resources, the oil and gas upstream authority Balak,
state oil and gas firm Pertamina and BP Indonesia.
Suara Pembaruan daily, quoting an unnamed source, reported on
Thursday that the team would leave for China on Monday, but
Nurwinakun, the ministry's spokesman, told The Jakarta Post that
there was no clear timetable for the departure.
The establishment of the task force has apparently not been
completed yet as Nurwinakun said he did not know who the leader
of the task force was, while BP vice president Satya W. Yudha
said the leader was "possibly" Kardaya, the acting director
general of oil and gas.