Cooperatives will take over old oil wells from Pertamina

Cooperatives will selects a number of old oil wells that would be handed over by state oil and gas firm Pertamina to cooperatives and regency administrations.

State Minister of Cooperatives and Small and Medium Enterprises Zarkasih Nur said he welcomed Pertamina's move to hand over some old oil wells to cooperatives, but his party would select only producing wells or wells with good producing potentials.

"The handover of old wells to cooperatives will be useful especially in creating new employment opportunities and new potential income for local administrations," he said.

Zarkasih said that the operation of old wells by Pertamina was not efficient because Pertamina was a big entity, and therefore it should focus on new producing wells.

Thus, when the old oils were operated by cooperative, it could be a lot more efficient because of low overhead costs.

"However, the operation of oil wells, or oil and mining business in general, is a speculative risky business. Therefore, we must be very careful. Cooperatives will not just take whatever wells offered to them. We don't want to create new problems," he said. (*)