Oil, condensate production has not met the government's 2007 target

Indonesia's oil and condensate production totaled about 995,363 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) as of August this year or about 95 percent of the government's 2007 target of 1 million boepd.

 

Dodi Hidayat, the Deputy Director for Operation of BPMIGAS, the regulatory body for oil and gas upstream operations, said Friday that as of August this year, the oil production reached 834,991 boepd, while the condensate production totaled 120,372 boepd.

 

"The total crude oil and condensate production has not met the government's target of 1 million barrels per day (bpd) this year because a number of technical problems in several oil blocks," he told reporters during a workshop in Kuningan, West Java .

 

Dodi said the unexpected technical problem had for example caused the production at ConocoPhillips’ Belanak oil field to reach only about 10,000 and 15,000 bpd or only a half of the initial target of 30,000 bpd.

 

He said the mercury content of Belanak reached 1,200 parts per billion (ppb), much higher than the initial expectation of 45 ppb,  a condition that forced ConocoPhillips work longer and spend higher costs to exploit the oil.

 

According to him, pipeline problem had caused production at the Poleng TAC in Madura which is jointly operated by Pertamina and Kodeco to drop to 8,000 bpd.

 

Production at the Offshore North West Java (ONWJ) block operated by BP has also declined to 139,655 bpd as a consequence of a maintainence work on its compressor since July this year. Meanwhile, the Arun field operated by ExxonMobil exprienced troubles during pipe installment, resulting in a drop in its condensate output to 49,259 bpd. 

 

Dodi said national oil production may decline by another 2,000 bpd in the coming months as ConocoPhillips is expected to close down its marginal field Sembilang. (godang)