Jambi invites investors to build refinery
Monday, January 15 2001 - 04:30 AM WIB
The Jambi province is inviting invite investors to build refineries to process the oil output of the province.
Jambi's governor Zulkifli Nurdin told Petromindo.Com, after a meeting with Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro on Friday, that the ministry basically supported the province's efforts.
The ministry noted however that the province should have enough oil resource to make the development of the refinery feasible, according to Zulkifli.
He said the development of the refinery was expected to provide more jobs to the locals and the provincial administration could increase tax earnings.
"This depends on the province's oil and gas reserves. If the reserves are enough, that the oil reserves are enough for 20 years of development, there will be no problem with funds. Because, many investors will be interested in building their refineries in the province," he said.
He said the province would improve security conditions in the are to lure investors.
Zulkifli did not specify the requirements for a refinery project to be feasible, but industry analysts say that a refinery will be only profitable if it has the processing capacity of 50,000 barrels of oil per day.
According to Zulkifli, today, the province produces a total of 29,000 barrels of oil per day from the operation of production sharing contractors of state oil and gas Pertamina, including American firm Santa Fe and Canadian firm Gulf Indonesia Resources. Zulkfili said this year the provincial administration expected to collect Rp 50 billion (US$1=Rp 9,590) in oil and gas revenue this year following the implementation of the Autonomy Law No. 22/1999 and the Revenue Sharing Between Central and Regional Governments Law No. 25/1999.
Last year, the province only received a "negligible" amount of oil and gas revenue, he said.
Zulkifli said the province was not interested to set up companies to buy shares in the oil, gas and mining operations in the province, because the province did not have enough money for that. (Godang/Epin)