Pertamina oil production in Feb. still below target

State owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina (Persero)?s production reached 189.48 thousand barrels of oil per day (mbopd) in February, still well below the company?s production target of 208.04 mbpod.

Pertamina?s president director Karen Agustiawan said in Jakarta on Tuesday that the production was still below the target because two of its upstream subsidiaries PT Pertamina EP and PT Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE) were still unable to meet their targets.

Karen said that Pertamina EP produced 122.67 mbopd in February, below its target of 134 mbopd, while PHE produced 57.22 mbopd in the same month, below its target of 66.39 mbopd.

The other subsidiary PT EP Cepu produced a total of 9.59 mbopd in the same month, exceeding the target of 7.65 mbopd.

Karen said that Pertamina EP and PHE were unable to meet their production targets because of a number of technical problems such as broken pumps, pipe leakage, in addition to power supply shortage.

She is optimistic however that the firm would be able to raise output in line with the targets later this year as it is driling two wells in Sukawati field, that ais Sukowati 15 and Sukawati 20 wells, which is expected to be completed in April this year. The two wells will add 5,000 bopd to its production.

The firm will also install an equipment called Electrical Submergible Pump (ESP) at the BN-18 well of its Bunyu field in East Kalimantan that is expected to jack up the well's output to 4,000 bopd.

It will also replace the C 623 air coller fan compressor at Kodeco Plong TAC field, which is expected to add 2,900 bopd to the field's production, raise production at Alpha Natuna TAC field by 2,300 bopd and Limau field by 2,000 bopd. (giok)