Pertamina to spend $2.08b for 2004 operations next year
Pertamina to spend $2.08b for 2004 operations next year
Evi Mariani, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta
State-owned oil and gas company Pertamina plans to spend about
US$2.08 billion for its operations in 2004, allocating $1.4
billion for upstream and $680 million for downstream activities.
"For the downstream operations, Pertamina will maintain and
revamp its refineries, improve its distribution network, buy
tankers, build oil fuel depots, establish liquefied petroleum gas
(LPG) terminals and upgrade oil fuel terminals," said company
president Baihaki Hakim.
For the upstream operations, the budget would be used for the
development of its production wells, especially those in southern
Sumatra and western Java. It would also be used for the
development of geothermal fields and participation in joint
venture blocks, he said on Tuesday in a hearing with the House of
Representatives Commission VIII for the mining, oil and gas
industry.
The company sees that its crude oil production capacity is
likely to increase from 34,463,750 barrels in 2002 to 36,950,000
barrels in 2004.
However, even though the company sees a bright outlook in the
crude oil production capacity, the nationwide capacity is most
likely to continue decreasing because the country has not
discovered new productive oil fields in the last four years.
"The last time Indonesia found a productive oil field was
about four years ago," he said. "It seems we have run out of new
oil fields."
According to a report from the Ministry of Energy and Mineral
Resources, Indonesia's production of oil (comprising crude oil
and condensate) steadily declined from 1.6 million barrels per
day (bpd) in 1995 to 1.34 million bpd in 2001.
"Even to produce 1.2 million bpd at present, the country has
to make real efforts," Baihaki said.
According to him, Pertamina contributes less than 10 percent
to the national crude oil production. The remainder is
contributed by production-sharing contractors including Caltex,
Unocal and Exxon-Mobil.