Pertamina sets aside Rp 19.4 trillion for investment this year
Friday, January 2 2009 - 02:35 AM WIB
Speaking during a year-end briefing on Wednesday, Pertamina?s President Director Ari H. Soemarno said that this year?s investment figure increased by about Rp 2 trillion from those allocated in 2008.
About Rp 11 trillion of the investment funds would be used to finance upstream oil and gas activities, Rp 2.3 trillion for processing, Rp 2.3 trillion for marketing and distribution and the rest for investment reserves, Ari said.
According to him, a larger part of the investment would be financed by the company?s internal funds, with the rest expected to come from bank loans. ?As taking loans would be more difficult due to the world?s financial crisis, the loans would be used only for projects which could begin production this year,? he said.
In 2008, Pertamina expects to book a gross profit of about Rp 50 trillion or a net profit of Rp 30 trillion. Up to the middle of December, the company already posted gross profit of about Rp 40.3 trillion and net profit of Rp 26 trillion.
?About 70 percent of the revenues or about Rp 26.4 trillion were provided by the upstream operations, while the downstream operations contributed only about Rp 11.2 trillion of the total,? Ari said.
He said that if crude oil prices, which reached almost $150 per barrel in the middle of 2008 but has since continued to fall, stayed between $30 and $50 per barrel this year, Pertamina?s profits were estimated to drop significantly this year.
Ari said that if the Indonesian crude oil price (ICP) could reach about $80 barrel and the exchange rate of the rupiah against the U.S. dollar averaged at about Rp 9,400, the net profit would fall by about Rp 7 trillion to Rp 19 trillion, this year.
?However, if the ICP is only about $50 per barrel, and the exchange rate of rupiah reaches Rp 11,000 against the U.S. dollar, the profit will be only about Rp 13.8 trillion,? he said.
Pertamina?s Upsream Director Karen Agustiawan said that the company?s revenues from upstream activities rose by about Rp 12.3 trillion last year due to an increase in oil production, in addition to an increase in profits of some of the company?s units in the upstream sector.
Karen said that Pertamina?s oil production reached 156,000 barrels per day (bpd) in 2008, the highest ever recorded by the company, while the gas production totaled 1,178 million metric standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD).
In 2009, he said, Pertamina?s oil production was expected to further increase to 169,750 bpd, partly due the commencement of the production at the Cepu field, which is operated jointly by the state oil and company and ExxonMobil. (*)