Kogas to buy up to 1m tons of LNG

Kogas to buy up to 1m tons of LNG

The Jakarta Post
Jakarta

South Korean gas company Korean Gas (Kogas) is looking to buy
up to one million tons per annum of liquefied natural gas from
Indonesia as part of a short term contract, an official said on
Thursday.

"They want a short term contract of between 5 and 7 years, and
we expect to reach a deal by February 2004," Eddy Purwanto,
deputy for marketing with the Oil and Gas Implementing Body (BP
Migas), told reporters on Thursday as quoted by Antara.

Eddy said the volume would be between 500,000 tons and one
million tons.

He added that BP Migas had met with Kogas to clinch a new
short term contract. As for a long term contract, Eddy said, this
would be up to the South Korean Minister of Energy (MOSI).

At present, Indonesia is seeking an extension to the contract
it has with MOSI for 2.3 million tons a year from the Arun LNG
plants, Eddy said. The contract with Kogas is due to expire in
2007.

Even if Indonesia managed to secure a long-term contract, gas
supplies would also be offered from Indonesia's future third LNG
plant, called the Tangguh plant, located in Papua province, or
from the Bontang LNG plant in East Kalimantan.

South Korea is one of the traditional buyers of Indonesian
LNG. Other buyers are Japan and Taiwan.

The government has been struggling to maintain the traditional
markets for Indonesia's LNG amid increasingly fierce competition
with the emergence of new players such as Malaysia and Australia.

Indonesia is the largest LNG exporter in the world with a
total output of around 31.6 million tons per annum.