BNI named trustee paying agent for Sanga-Sanga LNG
Thursday, January 15 2015 - 01:40 PM WIB
The TPA agreement was signed on Thursday by BNI?s President Director Gatot M Suwondo, Vico Indonesia?s President & CEO Gunther Alois Newcombe and Finance Director of PT Pertamina Arief Budiman, upstream authority SKK Migas said in a statement.
It was the second time BNI had been appointed as TPA by an oil and gas firm. BNI was first appointed as TPA by French firm Total Indonesie for the sale of LNG from Mahakam block, also in East Kalimantan.
BNI will use a new scheme to handle the LNG revenue from Sanga-Sanga block, which is different from the one it employed for revenue from Mahakam. The Sanga-Sanga LNG revenue will be handled by BNI?s branch office in Singapore acting as TPA in cooperation with a Unit Trust in Indonesia.
The Trustee agreement is in line with central bank Bank Indonesia?s.regulation ((PBI) No. 16/10/2014 dated May 14, 2014) which obliges revenue from oil and gas exports to be handled by local banks.
SKK Migas?s Chairman Amien Sunaryadi explained that the value of Sanga-Sanga LNG transaction to be handled by BNI amounts to $300 million, which is the total revenue to be generated from the sales of six excess LNG cargoes from the block in 2015.
Amien praised the Bank Indonesia regulation, saying it should be elevated into a law.
He said prior to the issuance of the regulation, revenue from Indonesian LNG and LPG worth $14.1 billion per year was hanlded by foreign TPA. At present, most of the revenues are still handled by foreign TPA despite the Bank Indonesia regulation.
?SKK Migas will oblige all LNG Indonesia contracts to follow the Bank Indonesia regulation and use state owned banks as Trustee Paying Agent,? he said.
Editing by Johannes Simbolon