Mobil Oil plans to open three more gas fields

JAKARTA (JP): Mobil Oil Indonesia will develop three new gas fields in anticipation of the depletion of supplies from the Arun field, Indonesian largest gas field in Arun, Aceh.

"Two of the new fields, located in South Lhok Sukon, with a total reserve of two trillion cubic feet are expected to come on stream in 1997," the company's public relations coordinator, I.K. Mahmud told the Jakarta Post yesterday.

He said the third field, located offshore Arun, will come on stream by 2000.

Mahmud said the new fields will supply the Arun LNG plant which exports to Japan and South Korea. He said the latest LNG shipment contract with Japan will expire in 2019.

"The additional reserves of new fields will enable the Arun LNG plant to operate at full capacity ( six trains) until the year 2019," he said.

Earlier, Vice president of PT Arun NGL Indra Kartasasmita said that the LNG plant will have to shut down two of its six production trains by 2014 due to a lack of gas supply unless new gas fields are discovered and developed.

PT Arun NGL is 55 percent owned by state-owned oil company Pertamina, 30 percent by Mobil Oil of the United States, and 15 percent by Japanese Indonesia LNG Co.

Pertamina currently operates 12 LNG production trains. Six of the trains are in Arun and another six trains in Bontang, East Kalimantan, with a total capacity of about 28 million tons per annum.

Mahmud said Mobil Oil now applies the Booster Compressor technology to push gas up from the Arun field which has a total reserve of 15 Trillion cubic feet, one of the five largest gas reserves in the world.

He said that the depletion of gas reserves in the Arun field has caused the decline of its compression power.

The Arun plant produces an average of 12 million tons of LNG per year, 90,000 barrels of condensate per day, and 1.5 million tons of liquefied petroleum gas per year. (04)