Pertamina carries out first oil lifting in Algeria

State owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina carried out first lifting of Saharan Crude from a field in Algeria it has acquired from American firm ConocoPhilips.

The crude totaling 600,000 barrels will be shipped from Azrew port in Algeria to the Balikpapan refinery in East Kalimantan using a large range crude oil vessel owned by Pertamina, called MT Gunung Geulis. The vessel will leave Balikpapan for Algeria on Jan. 9, 2014 and will take between 28 and 30 days to take the crude oil back to Balikpapan.

Pertamina?s Director of Marketing and Commerce Hanung Budya said the acquisition of field in Algeria was part of Pertamina?s commitment to ensure crude supplies for Indonesia in order to strengthen the national energy resilience.

?After acquiring the 405a Block from ConocoPhilips, Pertamina now operates three main oil fields, namely Menzel Lejmat North (MLN), EMK and Ourhod. Pertamina has a 65 participating interest and acts as operator in MLN. Besides, Pertamina has 16.7 percent participating interest in EMK field and 3.7 percent in Ourhoud giant field,? Hanung said in a statement on Wednesday.

Pertamina?s net share in the block?s production amounted to 23,300 barrels in October. The net share is expected to rise to 32,000 bpd in 2016-2017, Hanung said.

Aside from Algeria, Pertamina has also carried out acquisition in Iraq. It has completed the acquisition of 10 percent interest in West Qurna Phase-1 (WQ1) mammoth field in Iraq from ExxonMobil. The WQ1 field now produces 500,000 barrels per day.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon