Natuna gas project to begin in 2010

State-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina is optimistic that it will be able to start developing the Natuna D Alpha gas block in South China Sea in 2010 even though there is a delay in the selection of partners for the gas project, the company?s President Director Karen Agustiawan has said.

?The selection of partners for the development of the Natuna gas block takes time. But we hope it cam be completed by the end of this year,? she said during a meeting with the Jakarta Foreign Correspondents Club in Jakarta on Wednesday.

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 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)