Unocal invests US$1.5 billion over five years
Unocal invests US$1.5 billion over five years
JAKARTA (JP): American oil and gas company Unocal Corporation
said it, together with its partners, had allocated a US$1.5
billion investment to develop the country's oil, gas and
geothermal resources during the 1997 to 2002 period.
The size of the investment underlined Unocal's commitment to
Indonesia and made it "one of the top investors in the country
during a very difficult period," Unocal Indonesia's public
relations coordinator Erwin Lebe said in a statement on Saturday.
He said chairman of the board and chief executive officer
(CEO) Roger C. Beach, accompanied by, among others, the president
of Unocal Indonesia Brian W. G. Marcotte, paid a courtesy call on
President Abdurrahman Wahid on Friday to voice the company's
commitment to Indonesia.
The President was accompanied by Minister of Energy and
Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro and the president of state
oil and gas company Pertamina during the meeting.
Unocal is locally known for its pioneering work in deepwater
oil and gas exploration.
According to Lebe, Beach explained to the President during the
meeting that Unocal had started exploration work in the deepwater
Makassar Straits area off the East Kalimantan coast in 1996.
Thus far, the company had drilled 83 deepwater wells in the
Makassar Straits and had made nine new discoveries including the
Merah Besar and West Seno oil and gas fields.
As the operator, Unocal planned to develop the West Seno field
for a total outlay of approximately $700 million, which would be
spent on the construction of facilities, including wells and
pipelines.
"West Seno is expected to start up at the end of 2002 and to
produce oil at a rate of 60,000 barrels per day," Beach was
quoted by Lebe as telling the President.
He also said Unocal had discovered large gas reserves in
several structures in the Makassar Straits.
The gas reserves, which are estimated at between four and 10
trillion cubic feet (tcf), would be supplied to feed the planned
Train I or the ninth train of the liquefied natural gas (LNG)
plant in the Badak area of Bontang, East Kalimantan.
The Badak LNG plant, which is the country's largest LNG
complex, thus far has eight LNG trains with an annual output
capacity of approximately 21 million tons.
Aside from Unocal, the LNG plant receives gas supplies from
Total Indonesie, a subsidiary of French oil and gas company
TotalFina, and from American oil and gas firm Vico.
Unocal said that it expected Train I to start up in mid-2005.
Beach also said that Unocal was interested in the country's
geothermal resources as an alternative for power generation and
had developed a 330-Megawatt (MW) geothermal plant at Salak
mountain in West Java together with Pertamina and state
electricity company PT PLN.
"Unocal encourages the use and development of this resource
that is a unique feature of Indonesia among the countries of the
world," he said.
Analysts say Indonesia has huge geothermal resources which
could potentially produce 19,000 MW but thus far only a fraction
of the resources have been developed.
According to Lebe, during the meeting Beach also called on the
government to provide security for the country's oil and gas
industry so as to improve confidence among foreign investors.
(jsk)