Pertamina asks for privileges to get two oil blocks in Makassar Strait

State oil and gas company Pertamina will not join the open tendering to be held by the government, in this case the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources, next month over nine oil and gas blocks in the country.

Pertamina president Baihaki Hakim said that it would not be fair for other bidders if Pertamina joined the tender because Pertamina currently knew all inside information about all the blocks.

Nevertheless, Baihaki said that Pertamina would demand two out of nine blocks to be offered by the government to private bidders.

Considering Pertamina's financial limitation, Baihaki said that the company would take two out of six deep water blocks in Makassar Strait off Sulawesi island. But he did not disclose which blocks Pertamina preferred to take.

"Pertamina's working capital is not big. We must be very selective, we cannot take all the blocks. Therefore, we will only take two working blocks in Makassar Strait," he said.

The six blocks are Popodi, Papalang, Donggala, Taritip, Jangeru and Tanjung Aru.

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.

Director General of Oil and Gas Rachmat Sudibyo has said that the six deep-water oil and gas blocks in the Makassar Straits that would be tendered for investors in March. Rachmat said that the government would offer the 1994 income split formula for the six deep-water fields.

A number of the world's oil giants had expressed interests in participating in the tendering of the six deep-water oil blocks in Makassar Straits. They included Unocal, Exxon-Mobil and Shell, grouped in the Four Brothers. (*)