Oil experts pledges to campaign against oil and gas bill

A group of local oil experts and former top executives of oil companies would launch a campaign against the government's plan to strip state oil and gas company Pertamina of its decades-long controlling rights on the country's oil and gas industry, a leader of the group said on Saturday.

RO Hutapea, former expert staff at the Ministry of Mines and Energy, said his group, which took some credits for blocking the previous government's efforts to introduce a new oil and gas law last year, would aggressively campaign against the government's plan to propose a new oil and gas bill containing clauses aimed at stripping Pertamina's controlling rights.

"Thus far, we have taken a low-profile stand, preferring to lobby the government to drop the plan rather than criticize the plan in public. But, now we are ready for a confrontation," Hutapea told Petromindo.Com.

Hutapea said his group, which bills itself as the Group of 20, was disappointed by the fact that Minister of Mines and Energy Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono had thus far refused to meet them for a discussion on the oil and gas bill currently being drafted by the government.

"We have had a discussion with the ministry's director general of oil and gas, but the minister has refused to meet us. Thus, we shall go the House of Representatives to voice our opposing stand to the oil and gas bill," Hutapea said.

The oil and gas draft bill, which will replace the Law No, 8/1971 on Pertamina, states that Pertamina should transfer its controlling rights on the country's oil and gas industry to a body independent from the government and Pertamina.

Today, under the Law No: 8./1971, Pertamina holds the rights of regulating, managing and licensing oil and gas companies.

Last year, then Minister of Mines and Energy Kuntoro Mangkusubroto proposed a bill aimed at revoking the rights, but Pertamina's former management along with the Group of 20 strongly opposed it. The former House of Representatives took sides with Pertamina and the Group of 20 and rejected the bill.

New president of Pertamina Baihaki Hakim, who is a former president of American oil company PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, has said the state company is now ready to lose the controlling rights.

Hutapea said the government's plan to strip Pertamina of its controlling rights would only weaken the role of national oil and gas companies and strengthen the domination of multinational companies in the country's oil and gas industry.

"If the oil and gas bill becomes a law, we shall be eaten by the giant multinational oil and gas companies," Hutapea said.

Hutapea said the controlling rights on the country's oil and gas industry should remain in the hands of Pertamina, but the state company should be restructured into a holding company with several units. The holding company will hold the controlling rights.

Hutapea dismissed the contents of the oil and gas bill as the brainchild of a Briton named David Brainwith, who now serves as an expert consultant to the Minister of Mines and Energy. The man used to work for British Petroleum.

"This man was first hired by Kuntoro last year to assist him in drafting the oil and gas bill. But, unfortunately, the new minister is still using him.

"I believe that this man has a mission of weakening the role of the national oil and gas companies in the country's oil and gas industry," Hutapea. (*)