Contractors must comply with new environmental law: Energy Minister

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Zahedy Saleh said on Thursday the new environmental law is not an excuse for oil and gas production sharing contractors to miss the national production target.

Saleh asked the contractors on Thursday to comply with the law, which he considered a challenge faced by the contractors in maintaining national oil and gas production.

?We have to face regional and global challenges that require us to improve efforts to manage and protect the environment in the future,? Darwin said in his speech upon inaugurating several new executives of upstream oil and gas regulator BPMIGAS.

He said compliance with the law would give a rise in spending. ?Like it or not, we have to allocate more money,? he added.

Despite the law, Darwin insisted the government would fight it out to meet, if not exceed, the national oil and gas production target. He said the government would improve efficiency, such as streamlining the bureaucratic procedure, to enable the contractors curb expenditures.

Director General for Oil and Gas Evita H. Legowo said earlier the implementation of the 2009 environmental law would risk reducing the national oil and gas production by 40 percent and adversely affecting investment in the sector. (godang)