Govt sets up a team to monitor oil output increase

The government has set up a team tasked to monitor the nation's oil and gas output to ensure the production target increase of 30 percent by 2009 can be reached, Kompas reported Monday.

Aside from monitoring production, the team, which is made up of independent practitioners and oil and gas specialists, will identify obstacles to reach the output target.

The team was established following a meeting from January 31 through February 3, 2007, involving at least 20 oil and gas contractors to discuss efforts to boost oil and gas production.

"The team's members will try to be independent even though it is not easy to find someone with good knowledge about oil but is no longer working in an oil-related institution," said R Priyono, director for business development at the upstream oil and gas regulatory body BP Migas.

Currently, Indonesia's average oil production stands at one million barrel per day (bpd) and the government has targeted to increase the output to 1.3 million bpd by 2009.

Indonesia has been seeing a downward trend of crude oil production since 1997, when the country's crude oil production reached around 1.5 million bpd and dropped to 1.2 million in 2001.

Meanwhile, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro is optimistic to reach the output target, citing potential additional output from several contractors.

American firm Chevron Pacific Indonesia (CPI), which accounts for nearly half of the country's output with an output of 480,000 bpd, is expected to be able to increase its output. American firm ExxonMobil and state oil and gas company are expected to start producing oil at 100,000 bpd at Cepu Block in 2009. Meanwhile, Pertamina has pledged to increase its output by 70 percent in the next several years, from around 100,000 bpd at present. (*)