Govt to review the sale of the Ambalat oil block to Italian oil firm
Thursday, March 10 2005 - 03:45 AM WIB
The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources will review the process of the sale of the disputed Ambalat oil block from Dutch oil company Shell to Italian oil company ENI Ambalat Ltd in 2001, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Thursday.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said in Jakarta on Wednesday that the review would be taken to find out if there were irregularities involved in the sale of the oil block.
In 1999, Shell obtained a production sharing contract from the Indonesian government to explore oil and gas in the Ambalat oil block, located off the cost of East Kalimantan. Shell then sold the oil block to the Italian oil company ENI after finding significant oil reserves in the area.
The Malaysian government, which claimed the Ambalat oil block as part of its territory recently awarded a similar contract to Shell to carry out oil and gas exploration in the same area.
Purnomo said Shell might have used the data it obtained from the Indonesian government in bidding the oil block from the Malaysian government. "It is quite possible that Shell used the Indonesian government's data when bidding the oil block," the minister said.
The Malaysian move to award a production sharing contract to Shell in the Ambalat area, has caused a tension between Indonesia and its neighboring Malaysia. Last week, Indonesia deployed warships in the disputed area to protest the Malaysian government's claim.
Indonesia and Malaysia later agreed to pull out their warships from the disputed area and to settle the dispute through a diplomatic process. (*)