Medco acquires more oil fields

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)