Oil giants eye 12 blocks: Official

Oil and gas giants are competing for 12 oil and gas blocks being offered by the government through a regular tender process.

R. Priyono, director of oil and gas upstream business development at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, said on Thursday that of 20 blocks offered by the government, 12 attracted potential bidders.

The bidders include old faces in the country?s oil and gas industry such as American firms ExxonMobil Corporation, ConocoPhilips, Chevron Corporation, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, Norwegian firm Statoil ASA, Malaysian firm Petronas, French firm Total S.A. as well as new faces as Singapore Petroleum Company and an Indian firm.

?We are evaluating their bidding proposals,? Priyono said.

?Only one national company has submitted its bidding proposal, that is (state owned oil and gas company) PT Pertamina, which in a consortium with Staat Oil, is eyeing a block in Makassar Straits,? he added said.

Singapore Petroleum is a new comer in Indonesia, but the firm has shown its strong commitment by recently signing a memorandum of understanding with Pertamina to develop the latter?s blocks. The Singapore firm has prepared US$1 billion for the purpose, according to Priyono.

Different from the blocks offered through ?direct offer mechanism?, which mostly attract small scale investors, the blocks that are offered through ?regular tender mechanism? that are estimated to have at least 100 million barrels of oil reserves each only attract big investors because the development of the blocks need huge investment and high technology, Priyono said. (Godang)