Oil drilling in Rembang should not affect environment

The Central Java Legislative Council have asked state owned oil and gas company Pertamina to take care the environment when conducting the drilling activities at its new well at Kumendung village, Rembang, Suara Pembaruan reported on Saturday.

Sutoyo Abadi, the chairman of the Golkar faction at the council, said the council hailed the new exploration works but said that the drilling activities should not cause destruction on the environment especially farming area of the local residents.

"The people will fully support the exploration as long as it will not harm the local people," he said.

Newspapers have earlier reported that the state oil and has company had cleared over 4 hectares of land in the village to make way for its exploration activities

Secretary of the local government's office Hamzah Fatoni said recently the state oil and company had spent about Rp 150 million for the compensation of about four hectare land to the residents.

He said that the oil and gas company had also built a new road to bring drilling works to the new oil well but the price of the land for the road was lower than the Rp 5,000 per square meter for the soil used for drilling activities. (*)