EXCLUSIVE - BP to resume gas operation in Pagerungan today after fire incident
Monday, October 30 2000 - 06:00 AM WIB
Oil and gas company Beyond Petroleum (BP) Indonesia, a subsidiary of oil and gas giant Beyond Petroleum, is expecting to resume its gas operation on Pagerungan Besar Island, Sumenep regency, East Java on Monday (today) after a fire incident on Saturday forced them company to stop its gas production on the island.
Spokesman for state oil and gas company Pertamina's foreign contractors management body (BPPKA) Sidick Nitikusuma told Petromindo.Com BP on Monday BP had managed to "handle the problem" on Sunday and it expected to resume transmission of gas to its customers today at the rate of between 200,000 and 250,000 million cubic feet per day (MMCFD).
BP normally produces 280,000 MMCFD and 4,000 barrels of condensate per day at the Pagerungan gas field, Sidick said via phone from Singapore.
The company supplies gas to state owned petrochemical producer Petrokimia Gresik, state owned gas distributor PGN and state owned electricity company PLN in East Java.
BP stopped gas production at the Pagerungan field and thus gas supplies to the companies Saturday afternoon following a fire incident at 2.30 p.m.
Sidick said the fire originated from a refrigeration compressor unit which is part of the compression system for the transmission of gas to PLN, Petrokimia Gresik and PGN.
The fire could quickly be contained by the field emergency team that it caused no casualties or fatalities.
The alarm system automatically blocked all the gas processing units, which resulted in the interruption of gas transmission to pipelines.
Sidick said BP and Pertamina were investigating the causes of the fire.
According to Sidick, PGN and Petrokimia Gresik were forced to stop operation due to the gas supply interruption but PLN could still operate its combined cycle power plant in Gresik using diesel oil. A combined cycle power plant can use either gas and diesel oil.
According to Sidick, PLN has a stock of 12,000 kiloliters of diesel oil at the Gresik power plant, which is enough for two days of operation.
Pegerungan gas field was formerly owned by Atlantic Richfield Company (ARCO) but now belongs to BP following the acquisition of ARCO by BP-Amoco. (Bodega)