Govt's information on Makassar Straits sold out

All information belonging to the government on oil and gas fields in the Makassar Straits has been bought out by global oil and gas companies interested in joining the tender for the exploration and exploitation of the deep-water oil and gas blocks in the straits.

An expert staff at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, Kardaya Warnika, said on Thursday (May 3), that the government would open bidding from investors for the deep-water blocks in the Makassar Straits in June 2001.

"We will open the bidding period (for the Makassar Straits) starting June for about one and a half months. We hope companies that have bought those data will file their bids," Kardaya said.

He predicted that a number of oil companies would form consortiums to explore and exploit oil and gas in the deep-water blocks to minimize risks of losses.

When asked if state oil and gas company Pertamina would be given a privilege over the oil blocks, Kardaya said: "No". But he added that the government would offer Pertamina some interests in any block in the Malacca Straits after the government determines the tender's winners.

"They (Pertamina) will be offered with 15 percent stake, but they must invest in the capital since the beginning," Kardaya said.

Pertamina would then be offered to raise its interests to 25 percent when the government's selected production sharing contractors found oil and gas reserves in their concessions.

"If Pertamina wants it, it can increase its interests in those ventures, but again it must increase its paid-up capital," he added.

Pertamina president Baihaki Hakim said earlier that Pertamina would not take part in the tendering of the deep-water oil and gas blocks in the Makassar Straits because Pertamina had accesses to inside information about the blocks.

Instead, Pertamina would demand some blocks or some interests in the blocks from the government.

The government has taken over the tendering of production sharing contracts for oil and gas fields from Pertamina since Nov. 2000. This automatically scrapped Pertamina's monopoly over oil and gas licensing for contractors.

The government is currently offering six blocks in the Makassar Straits for investors. The six blocks are Popodi, Papalang, Donggala, Taritip, Jangeru and Tanjung Aru.

A number of the world's oil giants have expressed interests in participating in the tendering of the six deep-water oil blocks in the Makassar Straits. They include Unocal, ExxonMobil and Shell, grouped in the Four Brothers. (arry-d)