Oil giants bid for Indonesian oil and gas blocks

Giant firms Exxon Mobil Corp., BP Plc, ConocoPhillips are among foreign companies that have submitted bids for oil and gas blocks being offered by the government.

The government offered 41 blocks in the latest auction announced in August this year, including 21 blocks through the ?direct offer? mechanism and 20 blocks through the regular tender system.

Under the direct offer mechanism, investors are allowed to choose blocks that want to develop. Once they have made a choice, the government will advertise the chosen blocks to attract rival bids. If none is interested or rival bidders offer less attractive investment plan, the government will award the blocks to the investors that make the first bids.

R Priyono, director of oil and gas upstream business supervision at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said companies that have submitted bids for the ?direct offer? blocks were American firms ExxonMobil and ConocoPhillips as well as Chinese firm PetroChina.

Exxon and ConocoPhillips have also submitted bids for the ?regular tender? blocks along with French firm Total, British firm BP Plc, and American firm Hess, Priyono said.

The government has set the deadline for submitting the document for direct offering on October 11 and December 26 for the regular tender.

Priyono did not specify the blocks eyed by each of the companies. (Godang)