Cost recovery set at $16b for 2015

By Febry silaban

The Budget Committee of the House of Representatives and the government finally agreed on Monday to set the oil and gas cost recovery in the 2015 state budget at US$ 16 billion, lower than the $17.8 billion earlier proposed by the upstream oil and gas authority SKK Migas.

"We agreed on the cost recovery of $ 16 billion," said Vice Chairman of the Budget Committee Tamsil Lindrung at a hearing session with the government to debate the 2015 fuel subsidy.

The 2015 cost recovery budget is higher than the $15.5 billion ceiling allocated in this year?s budget.

Acting Chairman of SKK Migas, J. Widjonarko said that the authority had proposed for higher cost recovery after the House and the government set higher oil production target of 900,000 bpd for this year, which means that production initially planned to come on stream in 2016 would have to push forward to next year, consequently increasing the cost.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak