Japex will not buy stake in Timor Gap
Japex will not buy stake in Timor Gap
JAKARTA (JP): Japanese oil company Japan Petroleum Exploration
Co. (Japex) had no plans to invest in the development of a depot
in Timor Gap in return for a stake in the project, a company
official said yesterday.
The official refuted a statement by PT El Nusa president Aswad
Dipo claiming that Japex had showed an interest in injecting
funds into the depot project located in Kupang, East
Nusatenggara, in return for a 20 percent stake.
El Nusa, a subsidiary of Indonesia's state oil company
Pertamina, had shelved the US$9.1 million depot project owing to
insufficient funds, Aswad said Thursday in a hearing with the
House of Representatives Commission V for mines and energy.
According to Aswad, a group of local banks initially agreed to
finance the project but could only supply $4.8 million due to the
monetary crisis.
El Nusa put the project's development on hold in April this
year when the depot was already 80 percent complete.
"We heard that El Nusa's depot project was put on hold due to
financial difficulties, but we haven't considered financially
participating in the project," the Japex official was quoted by
Dow Jones as saying in Tokyo.
Under an exclusive negotiation right for the Savo block in the
Timor Sea awarded in May 1997 by Pertamina, Japex has been
conducting seismic explorations and reprocessing, and then
evaluating the geological data on the block.
"As we've done two seismic drillings so far, we are currently
reprocessing the data with a target date to complete evaluation
at the end of this year," he said.
The oil and gas-rich Timor Gap, located in the Timor Sea
separating Timor island and Australia, is co-owned by the
Indonesian and Australian governments.
Aswad said that El Nusa's depot project in Kupang was aimed at
competing with oil and gas logistical depots in Darwin,
Australia.
Separately, another Japanese oil developer, Indonesia
Petroleum Ltd. (Inpex) has also been conducting seismic
explorations in the Rabe block in the Timor Gap where the company
was awarded a production-sharing contract by Pertamina.
"Because our (Timor) project is still in the seismic drilling
stage, we aren't yet interested in securing depot space, nor in
investing in the depot development project," an Inpex official
said. (jsk)