Pertamina to sign seven new contracts
JAKARTA (JP): The state oil company Pertamina will sign four technical assistance contracts and three production-sharing deals later this month for oil and gas exploration and production, a company executive says.
"The technical assistance contracts will be awarded to companies which will help manage and operate Pertamina's old oil fields in South Sumatra and Irian Jaya with an enhanced recovery method," Pertamina's director for exploration and production, G.A.S. Nayoan, told The Jakarta Post and Kompas daily here yesterday.
The three production-sharing contracts will be awarded to companies for oil and gas exploration and production in North and South Sumatra and South Sulawesi, Nayoan said during a break at the one-day symposium on oil and gas research at the Pertamina's headquarters here.
Yesterday's symposium featured various oil and gas studies made by students and experts of the University of Indonesia (UI), the Gajah Mada University of Yogyakarta, the Bandung Institute of Technology (ITB) and Oil and Gas Research and Development Institute (Lemigas).
He declined to reveal the name of the companies to be awarded the contracts.
He said that Minister of Mines and Energy I.B. Sudjana has approved two of the technical assistance contracts for operation in South Sumatra and one production-sharing contract for operation in South Sumatra, while the other contracts are still undergoing final negotiations.
"We expect all the contracts will be signed after Christmas," he said. "Their signing will bring the number of contracts signed by Pertamina this year to 11."
Pertamina last year signed a total 12 contracts for oil and gas exploration and production, as compared to 10 signed in 1992, 22 in 1991 and 19 in 1990.
In July, Pertamina awarded three technical contracts to PT Patrindo Persadamaju for developing Pertamina's former oil field in the 197.54-square-kilometer Wasian-Mogori bloc in Irian Jaya, to PT Binawahana Petrindo Merupa for the 245.94-square-kilometer bloc in Meruap, Jambi, and to PT Babat-Kukui Energi for the 8.96- square-kilometer bloc in Babat and Kukui in South Sumatra. Pertamina also awarded one contract to PT Petrocorp Exploration Indonesia Ltd, a subsidiary of a New Zealand oil corporation, to explore for oil and gas in the 980-square-kilometer Karang Besar bloc off the coast of East Kalimantan.
According to Nayoan, Pertamina early this year offered 21 areas to investors for technical assistance cooperation in oil and gas exploration and production in South Sumatra, East Kalimantan, North Sumatra and in West Java, in addition to seven other areas for oil and gas exploration and production in Salawati A, C, D, E, E. F and N onshore Irian Jaya under production-sharing arrangements.
Nayoan said he expected that Pertamina will award 15 contracts next year. "There have been four companies applying for oil and gas exploration and production on Kei Besar and Kei Kecil islands in Maluku and South Sumatra," he added.
Inauguration
Nayoan also said that President Soeharto is scheduled to inaugurate Pertamina's first export-oriented oil refinery (Exor I) of Balongan of Indramayu, West Java, which has a processing capacity of 125,000 barrels of oil per day.
The inauguration, which will be held at a compound of the geothermal power plant on Mount Salak, West Java, will also include four of the state electricity company PT PLN's power projects.
PLN's spokesman, David Tombeg, told The Jakarta Post yesterday that the power projects to be inaugurated are a geothermal power plant on Mount Salak with a capacity of 110 megawatts (MW), another geothermal plant on Mount Darajat with a capacity of 55 MW, an open-cycle power generation plant at Tanjung Priok of Jakarta with a capacity of 260 MW, a combined-cycle plant at Tanjung Priok with a capacity of 800 MW, a gas-fueled power station in Bali with a capacity of 84 MW, a diesel-fueled generation plant in Lombok with a capacity of 15.2 MW and electricity transmission facilities in Central and West Java.
A PLN expert, Imam Soesanto, told the Post that the Rp 197 billion Mount Salak geothermal plant has been financed with the state budget, PLN's equity and a loan from Italy, while the Mount Darajat plant, costing Rp 153 billion, has been financed with the state budget and a loan of the Asian Development Bank (ADB). The Tanjung Priok coal-fired plant has been financed with loans from the Union Bank of Switzerland, Kredittanftalt fur Wiederaufbau of Germany, the Export Import Bank of Tokyo and the state budget.(fhp)