Anadarko eyeing further stake in Chevron's E. Kalimantan assets

US oil firm Anadarko Petroleum is in talks with oil major Chevron Corp. to acquire further interest in the latter?s East Kalimantan deepwater E&P assets, a BPMIGAS official said on Friday.

?Anadarko is interested to acquire stake at Chevron?s East Kalimantan deepwater gas portfolio including Gehem and Gendalo fields,? BPMIGAS Chairman Kardaya Warnika told Petromindo.Com. Both gas fields lie in Ganal PSC in Makassar Strait.

Chevron has a number of undeveloped significant gas inventories in East Kalimantan beside Gehem and Gendalo.

Chevron Indonesia and Anadarko Petroleum officials could not be reached for comment.

Anadarko earlier this year had acquired interest in Chevron?s five non-operating exploration blocks offshore East Kalimantan in exchange for non-operating stake at Anadarko?s North East Madura III block offshore East Java.

Chevron has currently several producing blocks in East Kalimantan, which supply less than 200MMCFD of gas to Bontang LNG, much lower than its contracted volume obligation of around 400MMCFD. Chevron recently announced its inability to supply current contracted volume to Bontang due to inadequacy of reserves.

A BPMIGAS official recently told Petromindo.Com that Chevron still has a number of gas reserves in East Kalimantan that can be developed to cater for Bontang LNG?s future production. ?But thus far Chevron is in the process of assessing its current reserves. BPMIGAS is still waiting for final figure,? said Sumitro KS, a senior official at BPMIGAS. Soemitro said that Chevron is downgrading its East Kalimantan gas reserves volume.

Chevron took over East Kalimantan gas operations last year through acquisition of Unocal Corp. (godang)