Govt assures all contracts by ex-BPMIGAS
Saturday, November 17 2012 - 03:07 AM WIB
The Indonesian government has guaranteed the validity of all of oil and gas contracts previously approved by BPMIGAS although the institution has been terminated as the upstream oil and gas authority.
?No contract gets cancelled due to the termination of BPMIGAS. All are still valid,? said Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik during a meeting with leaders of the oil and gas production sharing contractors (PSC) in Bali on Friday night.
The meeting was convened to give an assurance to all PSC contractors that all of their contracts approved by BPMIGAS are still valid based on terms agreed between the government and the contractors.
The meeting was attended by all top leaders of Chevron, Medco, Premier, Salamander, Exxon, Ephindo, Pertamina EP, several other Indonesian private companies, and executive members of the Indonesian Petroleum Association (IPA), including Sammy Hamzah, and Dipnala.
The energy and mineral resources ministry organized the meeting after the Constitutional Court (MK) issued a legal verdict that BPMIGAS is illegal and has to be terminated as an upstream oil and gas authority.
The government, through the ministry, has taken a temporary decision to protect all contracts made before by BPMIGAS. President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has issued a presidential decree to transfer the authority of BPMIGAS to the ministry, which then set up the SKS BPMIGAS, a temporary executive unit to take over the function of BPMIGAS temporarily.
?Now all responsibilities regarding the oil and gas contracts are transferred to the ministry of energy and mineral resources,? Jero Wacik told the oil and gas leaders.
He said that to further strengthen the legal certainty of the unit, President would in the near future issue another decree on the issue.
?Together with House of Representatives, we?re also continuing discussions on the revision of oil and gas law,? he said.
He also noted that all executive members of BPMIGAS had been reinstalled to the new unit in order to assure the legal certainty.
Saying that the oil and gas sector contributes more than Rp 300 trillion per year to the state income, he said that it is very important to secure the legal certainty in the energy sector.
?The government will also discuss with DPR on setting up a new institution to replace BPMIGAS,? said Jero Wacik, who is also the chairman of the new executive unit (SKS).
Editing by Benget Besalicto Tnb.