Oil, gas contractors to spend $16b in 2010: BPMIGAS

The country's oil and gas contractors have proposed a total investment of US$15.99 billion for upstream activities throughout 2010, a 41 percent increase from investment in 2009, oil and gas upstream authority BPMIGAS said.

Anditya Maulana, head of the operation division at BPMIGAS, told reporters Wednesday the investment figure was based on the work program and budget (WPNB) submitted by oil and gas contractors to BPMIGAS.

?Of the total planned investment, $13.63 billion is expected from production working areas, while the remaining $2.36 billion is expected from exploration working areas," he said.

The contractors also proposed a high investment figure for 2009. They proposed a $15.15 billion investment, but only $10.87 billion of the plan was realized, according to BPMIGAS.

?This was caused by the increasing efficiency of contractors and the fact that some projects were delayed both in EPC (engineering, Procurement and Construction) and drilling," said Priyo Widodo, head of BPMIGAS?s division in charge of government revenue shares, adding the investment in the delayed project would be continued over the coming years.

BPMIGAS said it would strengthen its monitoring of the contract maintenance works to avoid similar problems in the future.

There are currently 232 oil gas contractors operating in Indonesia, including 64 in the production stage, 168 in exploration stage. (godang)