Chevron says merger of Indonesian units to be completed in 1 month

Indonesian unit of US oil giant Chevron corp. said on Friday that it would complete merger of Chevron and Unocal assets in Indonesia within one month and would put the combined assets under the supervision of the so-called IndoAsia Business Unit.

Chevron?s acing managing director of IndoAsia business Unit Wahyudin Yudiana, said that Chevron is committed to continue Unocal?s earlier plan for East Kalimantan assets, which include a huge portfolio of several oil and gas producing assets as well as untapped gas reserves.

The merger has created huge Indonesian assets as Chevron is currently Indonesia?s top crude producer from its maturing Riau oilfields with production of 470,000 BPD and Unocal assets, all of which are located in East Kalimantan opens Chevron?s access to LNG business as Unocal supplies gas to Badak NGL in Bontang and would likely to supply more in the future with the planned development of its huge untapped gas reserves.

Beside hydrocarbon business, the business combination also put Chevron as industry leader in geothermal as the merger would combine 3x55 MW Salak power plant and 70MW Drajat power plant, with additional 105MW would become onstream in 2006.

Chevron completed merger with Unocal Corp. on August 10, beating Chinese oil firm CNOOC Ltd in the process. (godang)