Oil and gas production falls in Jan-April period
Wednesday, June 6 2007 - 02:10 AM WIB
The country's oil and gas production fell below the target during the period between January and April this year due to a technical problem in production facilities in a number of oil fields, a minister says.
Speaking in a hearing with the House of Representatives' Commission VII for energy Tuesday, Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro unveiled that the average oil production reached only about 964,000 barrels per day (bpd) during the January and April period, or about 90,000 bpd below the government's target of 1.05 million bpd.
With the lower than expected oil production, the minister had proposed for a cut in oil production in the mid-year state budget revision to one million bpd from 1.05 million bpd in the original budget this year.
According to the minister, the dropped in the production was caused by technical problem in production facilities in a number of the country's major oil fields including those owned by BP West Java, EMP Kangean and ConocoPhillips.
The technical problem in the single buoy mooring (SBM) facilities in an oil field owned by BP West Java had halted the company's production of about 30,000 bpd during the January and April. The field has resumed production since May 8 following the operation of a new SBM.
The technical problem also halted production at the Mutiara floating storage oil (FSO) operated by EMP Kangean, causing the drop in production level by 3,000 bpd but the production activities are expected to return to normal in September this year. The same problem occurred at ConocoPhillips's Natuna field causing a drop in production level by 13,600 bpd.
The minister said that the gas production also fell behind the target in the January-April period, reaching only about 7,718 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD), or only about 91.6 percent of this year's target of 8,423 (MMSCFD).
He said that the gas production could not meet the target because the South Sumatra-West Java gas pipeline had not been fully operated and is also due to a leakage in Pertamina's pipeline which resulted in the decline in the gas supply from Santos and EMP Kangean. (*)