Candidates for Pertamina directors

A number of candidates for members of the state oil and gas company Pertamina's board of directors have emerged a half-month ahead of the planed revamp at Pertamina's management.

Sources at Pertamina, government and production sharing contractors (PSCs) said that Pertamina's president Baihaki Hakim remained the strongest contender for the top post at the state oil and gas firm after management restructuring.

Sources said, the candidacy of Baihaki was supported by Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro and blessed by President Abdurrahman Wahid. Baihaki also got supports from some legislators.

Besides Baihaki, other names also emerged, such as the chairman of the National Development Planning Board, Djunaedi Hadisumarto.

However, most sources said Baihaki got the strongest supports among other candidates for Pertamina president director because of his background as president of PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, the largest oil and gas contractor in Indonesia.

Legislator Emir Moeis, deputy chairman of the House of Representatives' Commission VIII on energy, also lent his supports behind Baihaki, arguing that Baihaki was free from the New Order sins. In addition, he proved himself to be a capable president of Caltex and now Pertamina and he would be needed to navigate Pertamina into a tougher competition in the future.

As for the position of the PSC management director, three names have emerged. Pertamina nominates Trijana, currently the head of Pertamina's PSC Supervising and Management Agency (BPPKA), while Minister Purnomo nominates Iin Arifin Takhyan, secretary of Pertamina's board of commissioners. The other candidate comes from PSC circle, namely Efendi Situmorang, vice president of Unocal.

As for Pertamina's upstream director, the strongest candidate is Gatot Karseno Wirojudo, currently Pertamina's exploration and production director. However, Gatot's age serve as his weakness point that would force Pertamina and the government to present a younger but capable candidate.

As for the finance director, Pertamina's current finance director still has a good change to retain his position.

But there are no candidates circulating to lead the directorate of downstream industries, that would merge four current directorates at Pertamina, namely the directorates of shipping, general, domestic storage and processing.

Nevertheless, sources said that current directors of the four to be merged directorates had good change of winning the position. They included Hary Purnomo, Sjahrial Daud and Arifi Nawawi.

Meanwhile, legislator Ramson Siagian of House's Commission VIII suggested that the downstream director be divided into two, as it would be too big to be a single directorate under Pertamina after the merging of four directorates.

He suggested that the directorate of processing be excluded from the directorate of downstream industries and retained as an independent directorate. (*)