Energy Minister to push Pertamina to build Tuban refinery
Tuesday, December 6 2011 - 11:35 PM WIB
He made the statement on Tuesday during the groundbreaking of the project facilities construction of the Cepu block.
?I will instruct Pertamina to build refinery in Tuban,? Minister Wacik said. He said the Tuban refinery will have the capacity of 300,000 barrels of oil per day.
If the refinery construction is materialized, it will be Indonesia?s tenth refinery. Pertamina is expected to cooperate with China Petroleum & Chemical Corp to build the refinery.
The minister said the oil output from the Banyu Urip field in the Cepu block will be initially prioritized for domestic consumption. ?After domestic needs are met, we (the government) will allow the production to be allocated for exports,? Wacik said.
The groundbreaking ceremony marks the commencement of the initial work for the full field development of the mega Banyu Urip project. Mobil Cepu Ltd, the operator of the Cepu Block, has awarded five major engineering, procurement and construction (EPC) contracts to five consortium companies.
Terry S. McMphail, President of Mobil Cepu Ltd said the construction work is targeted to be completed in 36 months. Those five contracts include the central production processing facilities contract; the 72-kilometer long, 20-inch diameter onshore pipeline contract; the offshore pipeline and mooring tower contract; the floating storage and offloading contract; and the infrastructure facilities and reservoir injection water basin contract.
The EPC 5 contracts were also signed on Tuesday, marked the final step in initiating the development work.
The Banyu Urip field discovery was announced in 2001 and is estimated to contain more than 450 million barrels of recoverable oil. Full field development will produce 165,000 barrels of oil per day and is planned to include 49 wells, an onshore central processing facility and a 95-km pipeline to transport the processed oil to an FSO facility. (godang)