President to inaugurate Belanak facilities
Monday, October 25 2004 - 05:44 AM WIB
Upstream authority BP Migas said in a statement on Monday that the inauguration ceremony would be held on Friday at the state palace.
The facilities are to support production at the Belanak field of the Block B in South China Sea.
COPI has invested US$885 million to develop facilities. The investment is part of the $4 billion investment planned by COPI to develop Block B.
Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said the investment was expected to send a positive signal to other oil and gas investors and encourage them to put more investment for explorations and exploitations.
He said the ministry would do its utmost to encourage investors to carry out more explorations so that Indonesia could maintain its oil reserves at 9 billion barrels at gas reserves at 176 trillion cubic feet despite the maturing process of many fields.
He, however, urged the Indonesian people to diversify their business activities so in order to ease the nation?s dependence on oil and gas sectors.
Previous reports say the FPSO has a production capacity of 100,000 barrels of oil per day (bpd) but COPI will produce 60,000 bpd in the first phase of production.
Indonesia, a member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), has seen its oil output declining over the past several years. Output has been lower than consumption over the past several months, turning Indonesia into a net importer of oil. (Bodega)