Thailand to keep buying natuna gas: Pertamina
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)