Indonesia sees 350,000 bpd output from new fields: Report
Monday, June 6 2005 - 03:12 AM WIB
Energy Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro sketched out six major fields that are expected to help the country remain a net exporter of crude, although he gave no start-up dates.
?If these fields can meet their targets we are confident Indonesia will increase its oil production in the near future,? Purnomo told the opening of an oil and gas conference in Darwin, Australia.
Indonesia, the second biggest oil producer in Asia, pumps less than 1 million bpd of crude, about 3 percent of OPEC's total and well below the country's formal ceiling of 1.425 million bpd.
It is considering whether to end its membership in OPEC after it became a net importer of crude several months last year due falling domestic output and rising demand.
The two biggest new fields are in East Java, including 170,000 bpd from the Cepu development and 50,000 bpd from the Jeruk discovery, Purnomo said.
The others were West Seno, with 27,000 bpd; Belanak at 50,000 bpd; an unnamed field run by PetroChina at 25,000 bpd; an unspecified field from state oil firm Pertamina at 31,000 bpd.
Purnomo later told Reuters that three major issues still needed to be resolved with Cepu's operator ExxonMobil in order to move closer to ending four-year stalemate over the development of the large field, which has held up production.
His estimate of Cepu output is much higher than that from ExxonMobil, which has pegged it at 100,000 bpd.
Australia operator Santos has said Jeruk could hold 170 million barrels and is looking to fast-track development.
The ConocoPhillips -operated Belanak field began production last December but has only hit 17,000 bpd.
Purnomo said Indonesia, which is hoping to boost crude and condensate production to 1.3 million bpd by 2008, had 9 billion barrels of oil reserves. (*)