Medco acquires more oil fields

JAKARTA (JP): Publicly listed oil company PT Medco Energi Corporation announced on Friday its acquisition of the stake of Union Texas Tomori Inc. in Senoro-Toili Ltd., an oil company in Sulawesi.

Medco said it agreed to pay US$1.03 million to Union Texas Tomori Inc., a subsidiary of Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO), for the latter's interest in Senoro-Toili Ltd.

Under the acquisition, Medco will continue commitments previously set out in production-sharing contracts of Union Texas Tomori with state-owned oil and gas company Pertamina.

Union Texas Tomori held two working interests in the Senoro and Toili fields, which cover 198 sq km and 277 sq km respectively.

Medco said about 100 million barrels of oil reserves had been discovered in Toili and 2.1 trillion cubic feet of gas reserves in Senoro field.

Medco acquired last month majority stakes in Western Simenggaris Petroleum Pty. Ltd., which runs oil and gas fields in East Kalimantan, and in Western Madura Pty. Ltd., which operates oil and gas field in Madura, East Java.

The company said the Western Kalimantan field, which covered 2,734 sq km, and the Madura field (2,719 sq km) showed good oil and gas potential although further exploration was needed.

Medco also announced on Friday it would adopt a Vibro Seismic Impact Technology (VSIT) technology to improve oil production in its existing old oil fields.

The company said here on Friday that its subsidiary PT Exspan Petrogas would cooperate with PT Sarana Chaliutama to implement the technology.

The VSIT technology, which is based on vibro-seismic process in the recovery of oil, was developed in Russia and reportedly has successfully increased oil production from old oil fields in the country by as much as 40 percent.

The company said that a pilot project had been carried out on a field operated by a major Indonesian oil contractor and the result was very promising. (cst)