Pertamina expects higher profit

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.