Pertamina’s crude oil output reaches 117,120 bpd until September 2003

State-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina’s crude oil output in the first nine months of this year has outstripped the entire production in 2002. Pertamina has produced 117,120 barrels of oil per day (bpd) until September 2003, whereas the total output in 2002 was 102,000 bpd.

The increase was due to higher output at Zamrud oilfield in Riau’s CPP block, Cemara and Xray oil fields in Cirebon, Bisnis Indonesia newspaper reported on Saturday quoting Pertamina’s communication manager Ridwan Nyak Baik as saying.

Meanwhile, Pertamina president director Ariffi Nawawi said his company’s oil output has been increasing since 2001.

“The oil output (of Pertamina) was 92,900 bpd in 2001 and it increased to 100,250 bpd in 2002, now it has reached 117,200 bpd until September 2003,” Ariffi said.

He said Indonesia’s top oil producers are Caltex Pacific Indonesia, YPF/Maxus/CNOOC, Exspan and Unocal.

With its 117,120 bpd oil output until September 2003, Pertamina became the country’s second largest oil producer after Caltex.

According to Ariffi, Caltex produced 513,160 bpd crude oil during the first nine months of this year.YPF/Maxus/CNOOC’s output has reached 91,210 bpd, whereas the output of Exspan and Unocal were 59,000 bpd, and Unocal 60,620 respectively during the same period.

Indonesia’s oil production in the past three years has seen ups downs. In 2000, oil production stood at 1.419 million bpd, but it fell to 1.341 million bpd in 2001 and further dropped to 1.252 million bpd in 2002. The estimated total output in the first nine months of 2003 is 1.282 million bpd. (*)