Four oil, gas projects suffer production delay

Production activities at four oil and gas projects have been delayed to next year from the initial target of this year, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Wednesday.

The paper quoted Deputy for Operation Control at upstream oil and gas authority Muliawan as saying that the projects include Wasambo field (operated by Energy Equity Epic Sengkang), Matindok (PT Pertamina EP), Dayung Compression 2 (ConocoPhillips), and Karendan (Ophir Energy).

He said that the Wasambo field was supposed to start production in the third quarter of this year, but has now been delayed to the first quarter of 2017 as production facility has yet to be completed. The field is projected to produce 80 mmscfd of gas.

Production at the Matindok field has been delayed as members of the consortium assigned to develop production facility have yet to reach ?harmony,? Muliawan said, and also due to lingering uncertainty over buyers of the gas output.

The Dayung Compression 2 project, which was aimed to expand production capacity from 310 mmscfd to 460 mmscfd, has been delayed due to land acquisition problem.

Meanwhile, the Karendan project, which is to produce 25 mmscfd of gas and 500 bpd of oil, has been delayed power distribution network to the location has yet to be developed.

Muliawan hopes that the delay in the production would not affect the government?s oil and gas lifting targets for this year, respectively at 817,900 bpd and 6,601.5 mmscfd. (*)