Oil block within our area: KL
Oil block within our area: KL
Agencies, Kuala Lumpur
Malaysia on Monday rejected a protest from its giant neighbor Indonesia for granting Royal Dutch/Shell Group an oil exploration concession in an area claimed by Jakarta, saying the bloc was within Malaysian territory.
The spat comes amid strain in Malaysia-Indonesia ties ahead of the crackdown from Tuesday on hundreds of thousands of illegal Indonesian workers in Malaysia.
Malaysia's national oil and gas company, Petronas, earlier this month awarded production sharing contracts (PSCs) to two of Shell's Malaysian units and to Petronas Carigali Sdn. Bhd. for deep-water blocks ND6 and ND7, off the coast of Malaysia's Sabah state on Borneo Island.
Shell Malaysia, a subsidiary of Shell group, has active interests in 17 PSCs in various offshore blocks in East and West Malaysia
Borneo or Kalimantan, the world's third-largest island, is shared by portions of Malaysia and Indonesia, and all of Brunei.
Indonesia says the area is part of its territorial waters and has sent a formal protest note to Malaysia.
"It's a violation of our sovereignty," Indonesian Foreign Ministry's chief spokesman Marty Natalegawa said in Jakarta on Saturday.
"If they (Shell) want oil concessions, they must talk to us," Marty added during a press conference.
Malaysian Prime Minister Abdullah Ahmad Badawi said the concession was within his country's waters.
"The people at Petronas know that the area is within our territory. If the area is somebody else's, why should Petronas go in there?" he was quoted as saying by the official Bernama news agency.
Foreign Minister Syed Hamid Albar stressed it was within Malaysia's jurisdiction to award the concessions but said the government would strive to resolve the dispute amicably.
"This is our area and we want to proceed in giving concessions," he said.
"At the end of it, we have to find a solution that is acceptable. As far as we are concerned, we have done on the basis of our understanding what is within our right, maritime right, in order to issue those concessions."
Jakarta has blasted Petronas' action, saying it was unlawful as the concession was granted based on a map Kuala Lumpur had unilaterally drawn up in 1979, that was never recognized by Indonesia or a few other Southeast Asian countries.
Unlike Malaysia, Indonesia said it had granted concessions in the Sulawesi Sea to various oil companies including Shell since the 1960s in accordance with its internationally recognized territorial rights.
Indonesia and Malaysia previously disputed the ownership of two small islands in the Sulawesi Sea, which is between Indonesia's East Kalimantan province and the Malaysian state of Sabah.
However, Indonesia claims that Malaysia's water territory extends up to just 19 kilometers (12 miles) from the islands. The exact location of the oil blocks has not been disclosed.
Indonesia in November awarded a production sharing agreement contract to Unocal Corp. to explore and exploit oil and gas in the East Ambalat Block, located in the same disputed waters.
But in December 2002, the Hague-based International Court of Justice concluded that the islands -- Ligitan and Sipadan off Borneo island -- belong to Malaysia.
Marty said Indonesia recently increased maritime patrols near the border with Malaysia.