Most Cepu EPC works almost completed, except for office construction

By Febry Silaban

The Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) works at Banyu Urip in the Cepu block are now mostly close to finish, but the EPC-5 which covers among others the construction of office, has been progressing slowly, according to a senior official of upstream authority SKK Migas.

?The progress of EPC-5 is the slowest of all, which is quite surprising in view of the fact they are the simplest works of all, including the construction of artificial lake and office buildings at Banyu Urip,? SKK Migas? Secretary Gde Pradnyana told Petromindo.com recently.

The Banyu Urip Cepu block project in the border areas of Central Java and East Java is one of the prime oil and gas projects expected to come onstream this year. The block is jointly operated by Mobil Cepu Ltd and PT Pertamina EP Cepu.

Meanwhile, Unit Head for Acceleration of Banyu Urip Project at SKK Migas, Julius Wiratno confirmed the EPC 5 has made a slow progress, blaming it on several factors, including late start, unfavorable weather condition, and underperformance of contractors due to lack of labors and low productivity of labors.

At present, the progress of EPC-5 has only reached around 56 percent of the total works, while the contractors of other EPCs have completed between 82 and 97 percent of the total works.

?Now we're working to accelerate the completion of the project. We have partially started the static commissioning and will continue with the dynamic commissioning, which will coincide with the final stage of the system completion,? Julius said to Petromindo.com.

According to him, first oil from the block is targeted to come in November this year, but the EPC contractors are now trying to speed up the completion of their works so that the project may come into production in August.

The progress of the five EPC works of the block project is as follows:
1. EPC-1 for Central Processing Facility (Tripatra-Samsung) has been 88 percent completed
2. EPC-2 for the Onshore Pipeline (Inti Karya Persada Teknik/IKPT-Kelsri) has been 97 percent completed
3. EPC-3 for the Offshore Pipeline (23km) and Mooring Tower (Rekin-Likpin) has been 82 percent completed
4. EPC-4 for Floating Storage and Offloading or FSO (Scorpa-Sembawang) has been 94 percent completed
5. EPC-5 for Infrastructure Facilities (Rekin-Hutama) has been 56 percent completed.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon