Pertamina, Petronas to finalize Sumatra gas sales this month

Representatives of state owned oil and gas company Pertamina and Malaysian oil and gas firm Petronas will meet later this month to finalize the 300 million cubic feet per day (mmcfd) of natural gas sales to the neighboring country.

Supramu Santosa, Gulf Indonesia? vice president for administrative affairs said the meeting would be held either in Jakarta or Kuala Lumpur.

Pertamina said the government was expected to receive a total revenue of US$4.5 billion from the 20-year sales contract of the natural gas, which would be partly supplied from Pertamina?s production sharing contractor Gulf Indonesia?s gas field --Corridor block -- in Jambi.

In addition to the Corridor block, the gas would be also supplied from Pertamina?s other gas fields in the area, including the Jambi Merang block, which is operated by the joint operating body (JOB) comprising Pertamina and Spanish-Argentinean firm Repsol-YPF, and the Bentu block operated by Australian firm Santos.

Pertamina expected the gas production from the province would be sufficient enough to supply the natural gas to the neighboring Malaysia at 300 mmcf per day for 20 years starting from starting from 2004. (godang/alex)