Jakarta adds up revenue from offshore oil

JAKARTA (JP): The city administration is set to receive approximately US$1.50 from each barrel of crude oil absorbed from city offshore oil platforms, the only natural resource here, an official said on Friday.

"Assuming the current oil price of $20 per barrel, the administration would only receive $1.50 for each barrel after the net profit was deducted for taxes," said the director of exploration and production at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, Kardaya Warnika.

Kardaya said that based on Law No. 25/1999 on Fiscal Balance Between the Central Government and Regional Authorities, Jakarta was allowed to collect 15 percent of the oil revenue, while the central government would collect the remaining 85 percent.

"But it's (the $1.50) not a small sum," he said during his brief to Jakarta Governor Sutiyoso and his entourage on Pabelokan Island in Pulau Seribu.

Based on an estimation that oil companies operating in the area under the jurisdiction of Jakarta could produce 18,000 barrels of crude oil per day, the city administration would earn a total of $9.72 million a year.

Sutiyoso and City Council Speaker Edy Waluyo and several officials and councilors were on a one-day trip to the island to visit the home base of Argentina-owned oil firm YPF-Maxus.

City councilor Tjuk Sudono of the National Mandate Party (PAN) said two oil firms with offshore Jakarta operations -- Maxus and U.S. firm Arco -- could produce more than 30,000 barrels per day.

The councilor from the council's Commission D for development suggested that in the future the administration required the firms to pay taxes on gas and oil pipelines established offshore.

In a bid to obtain accurate oil production capacity data, Edy Waluyo asked state oil and gas firm Pertamina for assistance in providing correct figures on oil production offshore from Jakarta.

Sutiyoso announced that his office would start securing oil revenue from the offshore oil resources beginning from Aug. 31, 2001 as stipulated in the law.

He said his administration would further discuss the issue with the neighboring provincial authorities of West Java and Lampung, whose area is also used by the oil firms.

YPF-Maxus vice president O.S. Adisaputra confirmed that several of the company's 63 oil platforms were located in offshore areas under the jurisdiction of the Jakarta administration. Many others are located in the waters of Lampung and West Java.

"But we don't have a map which shows the precise location of our oil platforms -- whether they are located in Jakarta, West Java or Lampung," he told the visiting guests.

Adisaputra said his firm's production-sharing contract with Pertamina stipulated that Maxus obtains 15 percent from net profit of the oil, while the Indonesian government will receive the remaining 85 percent.

He said the contract, which was signed in 1968 for a 30-year period, had been extended for an additional 20 years. (jun)