Pertamina expects higher profit

The Jakarta Post, Jakarta

State oil and gas firm PT Pertamina expects pretax profit from exploration and production activities to increase by 21 percent in the first half of this year.

Bambang Nugroho, Pertamina's upstream director, said on Friday pretax profit from upstream businesses was expected to increase to Rp 4.4 trillion (US$468.08 million) in the first semester of this year, from Rp 3.6 trillion in the same period in 2003.

The increase is due to higher crude oil production and crude prices, he said.

The company's crude production stands at 130,000 barrels per day (bpd), which is an increase from 119,000 bpd last year. This production include Pertamina's own operations as well as the company's partners.

Bambang said Pertamina expected to produce 145,000 barrels a day of crude oil by the end of this year, with that figure being increased to 250,000 bpd by 2005.

Pertamina also sees its natural gas production increasing to one billion cubic standard feet a day (BCSFD) by the end of the year, from about 900 million cubic feet per day. The company hopes to further increase this figure to 1.5 BCSFD by 2008.

Pertamina discovered new oil reserves amounting to 250 million barrels in the Pondok Tengah field and Tegaltaman field in West Java this year. It also discovered additional natural gas reserves amounting to 2.5 trillion cubic feet in the Randublatung (Central Java), West Suban (South Sumatra) and Sukamaju and Maleoraja (Southeast Sulawesi) fields.

As part of efforts to boost production, the company also plans to increase its exploration activities abroad. Pertamina is preparing exploration work in Algeria and Iran.

In Iran, Pertamina plans to do exploration in the Khoramabad and Kuhdsat fields, in cooperation with PIDC Vietnam, Singapore's Serica and Iran's Azar Oil.

In Algeria, Pertamina is preparing to participate in bidding for three oil and gas blocks, in collaboration with PIDC Vietnam.

Next week, the company will sign a working agreement with the Oil and Gas Upstream Regulatory Body on the management of Pertamina's working acreages.

"The signing of the agreement is important because it entitles the company to manage some 140,000 square kilometer of working acreages," Bambang said.

The company will return 30,000 square kilometers of its working area to the government.