Govt urges Pertamina to speed up Natuna gas project

The government is urging state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina to speed up the development of the Natuna D-Alpha gas block in Riau Islands province.

?We do not want to be late for this. We expect Pertamina to select its partner quickly and objectively,? Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Darwin Z. Saleh said on Monday.

Darwin also said Natuna gas would be mainly exported. ?Based on the oil and gas law, if the reserve contains huge amounts of gas, the government can export it after part of the gas is allocated for domestic needs,? he said.

In April 2009, Pertamina?s President Director Karen Agustiawan said that it would be able to start developing the Natuna D Alpha in 2010 even though there is a delay in the selection of partners for the gas project.

She said that it needs seven to eight years of development before production begins at the Natuna gas field.

The government has handed over the block to Pertamina after the contract owned by American oil and gas giant ExxonMobil Corp. expired. The block is believed to hold 47 trillion cubic feet (TCF) of recoverable natural gas.

Karen said in November last year that Pertamina is ready to farm out up to 60 percent interest in the giant block to partner(s) and did not rule out the possibility of selecting more than one partners. Karen said Pertamina and the partner(s) might form a Joint Operating Committee to co-operate the block.

Pertamina then short-listed eight international companies as potential partners to develop the block. The companies are ExxonMobil, Corp., Total SA, Chevron Corp., StatOil, Royal Dutch/Shell, Eni SpA, Petronas and China National Petroleum Corp. (godang/bernard)