RI, Malaysia, Vietnam to explore oil in Serawak

RI, Malaysia, Vietnam to explore oil in Serawak

Dow Jones, Jakarta

Three state-owned companies from Indonesia, Malaysia and Vietnam will start exploring for oil and gas in Serawak early next year, an official said Thursday.

Pertamina, Malaysia's Petronas and Vietnam Oil & Gas Corp., or PetroVietnam, will start looking for oil and gas in the Malaysian territory in March, said Pertamina President Director Ariffi Nawawi.

The venture is part of a "three-partite cooperation" among state-owned oil and gas companies from Indonesia, Malaysia, and Vietnam, he told the parliament in a hearing.

In February, the three companies embarked on oil and gas exploration in Vietnam.

Ariffi said Pertamina is offering a block in East Java for exploration and the other two partners are assessing the block.

Under the joint operation, the host company will hold a 40 percent stake in an oil and gas block, and its partners equally split the remaining 60 percent, Ariffi added.

Meanwhile, Pertamina said Thursday its average crude oil production rose slightly to 117,120 barrels per day (bpd) in the January-September period.

The company didn't provide a comparative figure from the same period last year, but said its crude production in 2002 averaged 100,250 bpd.

The increase is due to the 3,000 bpd contribution from its Zamrud field in central Sumatra, which started production earlier this year, and an increase in daily output from a field in West Java to 24,000 bpd from 14,000 bpd, Ariffi said.

Pertamina is the second largest crude oil producer in Indonesia after PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, which produces 513,160 bpd from its blocks in Sumatra's Riau province.

Indonesia is the only South East Asian member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC. The country's total crude production stands around 1.1 million bpd, below its OPEC quota of 1.27 million bpd.