Chevron submits PoD for E. Kalimantan deepwater gas field

US energy giant Chevron Corp. has submitted plan of development (PoD) for its deepwater Sadewa gas field offshore East Kalimantan earlier this year, but later returned by upstream oil and gas authority BPMIGAS for further study, a BPMIGAS official said on Friday.

BPMIGAS deputy chairman in charge of planning Ahmad Lutfi told Petromindo.Com that under the PoD submitted by Chevron, Sadewa would be able to produce 120MMCFD of gas to supply Bontang LNG plant. The PoD plans for first production from Sadewa in 2010, he said.

BPMIGAS later returned the PoD to Chevron, asking the company to re-process seismic data to ensure the data credibility on the field?s reserves. ?BP Migas has asked Chevron to re-process the data because we want to avoid West Seno case from happening again,? he said. West Seno, which is also operated by Chevron, is Indonesia?s first deep water oil and gas project and was considered a failure due lower than planned production and swelling development costs. Chevron becomes operator of East Kalimantan PSC, where Sadewa field is located and West Seno PSC after acquiring US oil firm Unocal Corp in 2005.

Lutfi said Chevron has cut Sadewa?s reserves by half from its original estimate, but did not give further detail. But a joint statement by Unocal Corp. and BPMIGAS on August 2004 said Sadewa had gas reserves of up to 600BCF.

Sadewa is part of a series of PoDs Chevron plans to submit to BPMIGAS as its effort to speed up development of its East Kalimantan oil and gas portfolio. (alex)