Bontang fails to take over Arun?s LNG exports

The government has cancelled its plan to switch Arun?s LNG exports to the Botang LNG plant after ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia pledged it would fulfill the entire natural gas requirement for the Arun LNG plant until 2017, Koran Tempo reported on Tuesday.

"Based on agreement with Pertamina, ExxonMobil has agreed to provide the natural gas until Arun meets all its LNG export contracts," Effendi Situmorang, the director for production sharing management at Pertamina.

He said that that if ExxonMobil could not meet all the gas requirement needed to support the LNG export plan, Pertamina would have no choice but to appoint the Bontang LNG plant to handle Arun?s LNG export contracts.

Arun?s LNG production activities were halted for several months last year after ExxonMobil stopped is gas production due to security reasons. Pertamina, on the behalf of the government, said at the time that if the production stoppage continued, Arun?s LNG export contracts would be transferred to the Bontang LNG plant.(*)