Thailand to keep buying natuna gas: Pertamina

JAKARTA (JP): Indonesia remains optimistic that Thailand will continue with its plan to buy natural gas from Natuna island despite Thailand's recent announcement that it would delay the purchase.

"The commitment is a long-term one, while (Thailand's current situation) is only temporary," Pertamina president Faisal Abda'oe said here yesterday.

He said the economic crisis currently hitting Thailand had not caused it to change its commitment to buy gas from the island located in the South China Sea.

Thai industry minister, Korn Dabbaransi, said last week that uncertainties in economic outlook had caused the country to delay its purchase of natural gas from Natuna, but that they had yet to inform the Indonesian authorities of the decision.

Korn did not elaborate on the delay, but Reuters reported some sources as saying the purchase could be delayed for two years to 2005.

Before the currency crisis, which saw a 50 percent drop in value of the Thai baht against the U.S. dollar, the country intended to buy the gas as early as 2003, with a planned volume of about 500 million cubic feet a day by 2005, and one billion cubic feet by 2007.

Thailand was also given the option of taking an 11 percent equity stake in the Natuna project as part of the agreement, but Korn said last week that the $40 billion investment would be too costly for his country at this point.

The Natuna gas field, one of the world's largest, contains 222 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. The project is 50 percent owned by United States' Exxon Corp., 26 percent by Mobil Corp and 24 percent by state-owned Pertamina.

Faisal acknowledged the Natuna project still faced marketing problems.

Marketing the product was the most important phase in a project like Natuna, before either the development or the financing stages, he said.

"The important thing now is to confirm purchases, and we have worked on that by approaching Japan, Korea and China," he said.

A Japanese consortium, comprising of eight trading houses and three exploration firms, is expected to buy up to a 13 percent stake in the project from Pertamina later this year.

A Singapore consortium has also pledged to buy gas from the island. (das)