Government approves Pertamina's planned acquisition of Maxus: Report
Thursday, February 8 2001 - 04:30 AM WIB
The government has approved the proposal from state oil and gas firm Pertamina to acquire stakes at foreign oil contractor Repsol-YPF in Indonesia (formerly named YPF-Maxus), Pertamina's director for production sharing management, Iin Arifin Takhyan, quoted by Bisnis Indonesia as saying.
The government's approval would be made official at a meeting of members of Pertamina's board of commissioners slated to be held this week. Pertamina would need US$800 million to finance the acquisition of all Repsol-YPF assets in Indonesia.
"The government approves the acquisition plan because in terms of business calculation, it will benefit Pertamina," Iin said after attending the inauguration of first echelon officials at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources in Jakarta on Wednesday (Feb. 7).
He noted that the planned acquisition of Repsol-YPF was part of Pertamina's new mission of expanding its oil and gas businesses into foreign markets.
Meanwhile, according to the secretary of Pertamina's board of commissioners, Roes Aryawidjaja, the board would chose one out of three alternatives in the acquisition of Repsol-YPF.
First, Pertamina would be allowed to buy all the assets at a price of at least US$800, or Pertamina would just buy half of the assets or only a quarter of the assets, at a price of between $150 and $200 million.
Argentina-based YPF-Maxus was acquired by Repsol of Spain in 1999, and then it was renamed Repsol-YPF.
Repsol-YPF is Pertamina's second largest oil production sharing contractor after PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia. Maxus produced an average of 122,652 barrels per day (bpd) of oil in January this year, compared to 591,386 bpd produced by Caltex.
Unlike Caltex whose oil fields are located onshore the Sumatra island, mostly in Central Sumatra, Repsol-YPF produces oil from offshore oil fields. Repsol-YPF, in fact, is the country's largest offshore oil producer, followed by Conoco (with oil output of 61,440 bpd) and Unocal (58,596 bpd). (*)