Pertamina asks for one oil field from Makassar Straits

Pertamina will ask for at least one field out of six deep-water oil and gas fields in the Makassar Straits that would be tendered soon by the government for domestic and foreign oil and gas contractors, according to Pertamina's director of exploration and production Gatot Karyoso Wiroyudo.

"But if Pertamina is given three blocks, Alhamdulillah (Thank God). Moreover, Pertamina is owned by the government," Gatot said.

The government has taken over the tendering of production sharing contracts for oil and gas fields from Pertamina since Nov. 14, 2000. This automatically scrapped Pertamina's monopoly over oil and gas licensing for contractors.

When asked, Gatot refused to reveal funding sources to conduct oil and gas exploration in the Makassar Straits. Gatot only said that Pertamina would form alliances with a number of oil and gas companies to explore the Makassar Straits.

"Besides, Pertamina itself is basically bankable (or having access to bank loans)," he added.

According to a high-ranking government official, a number of the world's oil giants had expressed interests in participating in the tendering of the six deep water oil fields in Makassar Straits.

They included Unocal, Exxon-Mobil and Shell, grouped in the Four Brothers.

Meanwhile, Director General of Oil and Gas Rachmat Sudibyo said earlier that the six deep water oil fields in the Makassar Straits that would be tendered for investors either in December or early 2001 at the latest.

Rachmat said that the government would offer the 1994 income split formula for the six deep-water fields.

"The six oil fields will remain using the 1994 incentives because the 1994 split incentives already govern income split for deep water oil exploration, tertiary geology sediment. We have made different classifications," he said without giving details of the 1994 incentives. (*)