Try inaugurates Bontang gas line
JAKARTA (JP): Vice President Try Sutrisno inaugurated here yesterday Pertamina's seventh liquefied natural gas production unit, the Train-G, in Bontang, East Kalimantan.
Try also inaugurated two other projects of the state-owned gas and oil company: the Balikpapan I refinery in East Kalimantan and the Kasim Sorong refinery in Irian Jaya.
All three projects were inaugurated by the Vice President at a ceremony held in Jakarta.
Try noted in his speech the importance of energy use and energy diversification due to the decrease in the country's oil resources.
"We are currently a net exporter of oil. But we can become a net importer of oil if we don't manage (our resources) properly and with planning," Try said.
The new liquefied natural gas (LNG) unit would raise the Bontang plant's output 2.6 million tons to 18.5 million tons a year.
The other six LNG units have been designated trains A through F.
The seventh train was built by Indonesian contractor PT Inti Karya Persada Teknik which is also the developer of the Train-F.
Inti Karya president R. Muluk was quoted by Antara as saying yesterday in Bontang that the construction of the Train-G took US$507 million, $11 million cheaper than the construction of the Train-F.
"The construction (of the Train-G) was cheaper because we used more domestically made materials," Rasuli said.
The general manager of Pertamina's subsidiary PT Badak which operates the Bontang LNG units, Suhardi, said the company could make 125 shipments of LNG with each vessel carrying 118,000 cubic meters of LNG, valued at Rp 32 billion ($8.2 million).
He said Badak's LNG accounted for Rp 2 trillion of the Rp 3.8 trillion in foreign exchange earned by the government in the 1996/1997 fiscal year from the gas sector.
Pertamina discovered natural gas in Bontang in 1972 and the first shipment was made in 1977.
Pertamina operates six other LNG plants in Arun, Aceh.
The company plans to build an eighth LNG unit, Train-H, to make the company the world's largest LNG producer with an output of 21.64 tons a year by 2000.
The company has signed a syndicated loan of $1.13 billion with the Bank of Taiwan, Chase Manhattan Corp., Banque Indosuez, Fuji Bank and Mitsubishi Corp. to finance the construction of the eighth LNG train.
Pertamina needs an eighth unit to meet the demands created by its new 20-year LNG sales contracts with Taiwan's Chinese Petroleum and South Korea's Korea Gas Corporation.
According to the contracts, Pertamina must sell 2.84 million tons of LNG to Taiwan and one million tons of LNG to South Korea annually starting in 2000.
The eighth production unit would be constructed by Inti Karya and Bimantara scheduled for completion in November 1999. (jsk)