Pertamina says work at Arun 70% complete

JAKARTA (JP): Preparations for the start-up of the Arun gas fields in Aceh are running smoothly with about 70 percent of the work completed, a official at the state oil and gas company Pertamina said on Friday.

Spokesman for Pertamina's managing production sharing directorate Sidick Nitikusuma said that at this working pace, preparations could be finalized within a week.

"Progress is being made faster than we thought possible," he told The Jakarta Post.

Sidick declined to set a date for Arun to start pumping gas to the nearby Arun liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant.

"I don't want to be specific, something can always happen and disrupt our schedule," he said.

The Arun gas field was slated for production by early July, but a bomb explosion at one of its gas pipelines about two weeks ago slowed down the preparations.

The blast occurred some 34 kilometers from the fields, alongside the pipeline that transports gas from the fields to PT Arun's liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant.

Following the incident, Arun's field operator, the U.S.-based ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia Inc., suspended work in remote areas where the pipelines run. The work has not resumed since.

ExxonMobil has deployed some 200 workers at Arun to lay the groundwork for the gas field's start-up.

According to Sidick, the explosion has set back the work by one week. Nonetheless, he added, ExxonMobil was able to make up for the lost time by simply working harder.

Also, thanks to the fairly good condition of Arun's long abandoned gas facilities, ExxonMobil's repair work is progressing well, he said.

"The reading instruments were damaged ... but it is more difficult to repair the pipelines," he said.

Sidick said two of Arun's four pipelines were damaged in April when technical problems caused gas to flare up at a gas collection facility at Cluster IV.

As repairing the two pipelines will time, ExxonMobil will resume the gas flow from two other smaller pipelines, he said.

"We've planned it that way, so we will start production with two (gas fields) clusters only," he explained.

Sidick said from the time gas began to flow into the Arun's LNG plant, it would require one week to produce the first drop of LNG.

The plant, he continued, was constantly running even though no gas was flowing into it. He said it would allow Pertamina to immediately start production once the plant was fed with gas without having to warm up the machines.

"It will take 12 hours to fill the tankers," he added.

Separately, ExxonMobil spokeswoman Julia Tumengkol confirmed that work at Arun was running smoothly, saying "progress is going well."

But she too refused to set a target for the resumption of Arun's operation. "We're doing the best we can to resume operation within this month," she said.

ExxonMobil, Julia went on, was still assessing the damage from its abandoning of the gas facilities.

Julia also said the company had yet to resume work in the remote areas between the gas fields and the Arun LNG plant where the pipelines ran.

ExxonMobil pulled out of Arun in mid-March following a series attacks on its staff

The attacks allegedly was committed by members of the Free Aceh Movement (GAM), which have been fighting for an independent state for over 20 years.

ExxonMobil's withdrawal from Arun prompted the suspension of Arun LNG plant's production, cutting off LNG exports to Japan and South Korea.

Indonesia earned about US$100 million a month from Arun's LNG exports.

ExxonMobil returned to Arun in late June after it concluded that security conditions had improved. Its compound remains heavily guarded by the military.(bkm)