BPMIGAS, Forestry Ministry agree to improve coordination

Upstream authority BPMIGAS and the Forestry Ministry have agreed to improve coordination and synergy in order to help achieve the government?s target to reach oil production of 1.04 million barrels per day in 2014.

Hardiono, the deputy chairman of BPMIGAS, said last week that under the Presidential Instruction No.2/2012 issued recently, all government agencies and provincial administrations should promote their coordination in order to achieve the oil production target.

?We hope the Presidential Instruction could be well implemented so that the government?s target to achieve oil production of 1.04 million barrels per day in 2014 could be achieved,? he said, adding that the improved coordination between BPMIGAS and the Forestry Ministry was expected to ease problems related to the issuance of forest land-use permits for oil and gas production.

In 2011, oil production sharing contractors planned to drill as many as 237 wells, but was only able to drill 104 of them due to difficulties in obtaining land-use permits from the forestry ministry for exploration activities in forestry areas.

?It means the realization of drilling plan is only about 40 percent due to non-technical problems such as the difficulties in obtaining land-use permits,? he said.

Editing by Roffie Kurniawan