New minister pledges to help Chevron realize IDD project
Saturday, May 31 2014 - 09:28 AM WIB
Chairul, a businessman, who was recently installed to replace Hatta Radjasa said the project was very important and thus the government would take measures to speed up the realization of the project.
?We consider the project a priority. As such, the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR), SKK Migas, the Ministry of Finance and the Investment Coordinating Board (BPKB) will be asked to speed up all the process so that the investment can be realized as soon as possible. The sooner the project is realized, the greater the benefit that the government will get from the project,? he was quoted by Kompas.com saying on Friday evening after a meeting with Chevron?s executives.
He said the IDD project needs a total investment of US$12 billion and Chevron has warned it would re-allocate the investment allocated for the project to projects outside Indonesia, if the government keeps delaying approval for the project.
The MEMR approved the Plan of Development (PoD) for the IDD project in 2008, in which Chevron set the investment amount for the project at US$6.9 billion. Chevron however later proposed to revise the PoD, arguing that the investment for the project would be exponentially higher as a result of rising costs of development. Under the revised PoD, the investment is revised upwards to $12 billion. It remains unclear if the revised PoD has been approved by the MEMR. (*)