Govt asked to give bigger oil and gas shares to provinces

Students from a number of universities in the country?s resource rich countries have called on the government to give a bigger oil and production shares to provinces, saying the current production split arrangement is not fair.

Speaking at a mining seminar in Palembang on Monday, representatives from the universities said that the new production sharing arrangement should be soon discussed to prevent jealousy among the provincial administrations.

The call was made after the government introduced recently a special autonomy law in Aceh in a bid to curb separatist movement in the province.

Under the new law, Aceh will receive 70 percent from both gas and oil production. Other provinces, under the existing autonomy law, will receive only 15 percent from oil and 35 percent from gas production. (*)