Medco, Santa Fe, Maxus, Gulf plan to boost oil production

The publicly listed oil and gas company PT Medco Energy through its subsidiary PT Exspan Sumatera is ready to increase its oil output by 10,000-15,000 barrel per day from current production level of 65,000-70,000 bpd, according to Medco president John Karamoy.

John said on Tuesday that the company was developing new oil wells and it was now constructing the necessary infrastructure.

He said that if the construction of the infrastructure could be ready before the end of this year, the company would have no problem to increase its oil output immediately.

John was responding to the recent decision of the OPEC oil organization to increase the output of its member countries in a bid to lower the soaring oil prices. Some Indonesian government officials have earlier said that the country's might have difficulties to immediately increase its oil output as some oil and gas companies might not be ready yet.

John said that only several oil and gas companies in Indonesia were ready to increase their oil output. He said that those who were ready included Santa Fe, Maxus, and Gulf.

On the trend of oil price, John believed that the international oil price could jump to US$40 per barrel as some analysts have predicted. He said that this was because the current world production level was already at the maximum point except for Saudi Arabia, and Norway for the non-OPEC oil producing countries.

But John said that the soaring oil price would not trigger world economic crisis, because the problem so far was the very high oil tax imposed by oil consuming countries like England. (R. Amoros)