Draft regulations on oil, gas sector to be ready by year-end

The government has set a target to complete by the end of this year the drafting of government regulations on upstream and down stream oil and gas operations, an official of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said Monday.

?Our target is that the regulations will be ready by December of 2003,? ministry spokesperson Sutisna Prawira told reporters.

Sutisna said several articles of the draft regulations had yet to be agreed on the Ministry of Finance and the Ministry of Home Affairs.

He said the Ministry of Finance wanted clarification on the tax regime mentioned by the draft regulation, while the Ministry of Home Affairs wanted further explanation about the relationship between oil and gas production sharing contractors and regional administrations.

Sutisna provided no details.

The two draft government regulations are meant to implement the current oil and gas law, which was issued in 2001. They are among the three government regulations yet to be issued to support the law. The other regulation is the one on non-oil tax in the oil and gas sector.

Three government regulations have been issued to implement the oil and gas law namely regulation on state oil and gas firm Pertamina, regulation on the upstream oil and gas authority (BPMIGAS), and regulation on the downstream oil and gas regulatory body (BPHMIGAS). (godang)