Pertamina, El Paso to sign LNG deal in January

State oil company Pertamina said on Friday it would sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with US oil, gas firm El Paso Corp to export liquefied natural gas (LNG) to the United States in early January, Reuters reported.

``The plan of selling LNG to El Paso will be realised in early January,'' Baihaki told reporters.

He declined to reveal the amount of LNG to be exported to El Paso.

But Pertamina's upstream director Iin Arifin Takhyan said El Paso would need around five million tonnes of LNG annually starting in 2005.

``Under the MOU to be signed, Pertamina will supply LNG to El Paso while El Paso will sell it to the U.S. market. The MOU should be followed by an agreement no later than mid 2002,'' Iin said.

El Paso had said in March it had tentatively agreed to begin buying LNG in 2005 to ship to California. Under this plan, LNG would be bought from a Phillipos Petroleum Co plant near the northern Australian city of Darwin.

Iin said the LNG to supply El Paso would come from Donggi gas fields in Central Sulawesi, where the company had just recently discovered a giant gas reserve.

Indonesia is the world's biggest LNG exporter with more than 20 million tonnes a year. The main buyers are Japan, South Korea and Taiwan.(*)