Mobil starts supplying gas

JAKARTA (JP): Mobil Exploration Indonesia State Inc., a unit of the American oil and gas company Mobil Corporation, has started providing feed gas to the liquefied natural gas producer PT Arun NGL Co. in Arun, North Aceh, from an offshore gas field in northern Sumatra, state oil and gas company Pertamina said on Friday.

The gas was supplied from the North Sumatra Offshore (NSO) A field in the Malacca Straits offshore from northern Sumatra, in which Mobil holds a 100 percent working interest, Pertamina's spokesman Ramli Djaafar said in a statement.

"This is the first offshore project in Indonesia to produce and treat a large volume of sour gas," Ramli said.

PT Arun is owned by Pertamina, Mobil, and Japan Indonesia LNG Company Ltd.

It operates six liquefaction trains capable of exporting over 12 million tons of LNG per year.

Discovered in 1972, the NSO gas field is located approximately 63 miles northeast of PT Arun's home base about 350 feet below sea level.

Mobil has installed a 7,000 ton production platform at the field designed for normally unmanned operation.

The gas is supplied from the field to PT Arun's plant through a 63-mile underwater pipeline.(jsk)