Pertamina delays oil exploration plan in Egypt

State owned oil and gas company Pertamina may delay its plan to carry out oil exploration activities in three oil fields offered by the Egyptian government due to security reason, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Monday.

Pertamina?s director for upstream operation, Arifin Takhyan, said in Jakarta over the weekend that investments in new oil exploration in Egypt carried high risk due to the uncertainty related to security. "The security there is much riskier than in Indonesia," he was quoted as saying.

Pertamina earlier said that it planned to join the tender to carry out exploration activities on Delta, Niel and Sueze oil fields in Egypt later this month.

"The Egyptian government has offered attractive packages to Pertamina to carry out the exploration works. Pertamina has also thoroughly studied the production sharing contract proposed for the three oil fields," he added.

Arifin said that investing in the three oil fields would be quite promising due to their high oil deposits. But the security condition was so bad, exposing a high risk to Pertamina, he added. (*)