Purnomo asks Papua administration to help end oil workers' blockade

Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro said on Wednesday he had asked the Papua provincial administration to help end adverse activities of workers at US oil company Devon Energy?s oil production unit at the Salawati block in Sorong Regency, Papua.

Purnomo said if the workers continue preventing oil tankers from taking crude from the Salawati block, prospective investors would become discouraged of doing business in the country?s easternmost province.

?I asked them to end the workers? action otherwise it would have negative impacts on investment climate in Papua,? Purnomo told reporters on the sidelines of a seminar in Jakarta.

The minister said the Kashim oil refinery plant owned by state oil and gas firm Pertamina, which is also located in Sorong, had not resumed operation because it could no longer get crude from Salawati. The facility, which normally processed 10,000 barrels per day of oil, stopped its activities on Tuesday, six days after workers at the Salawati block went on strike.

Some 200 workers of Devon disallowed Pertamina?s oil tankers to berth at Salawati and also cut off oil supply through a pipeline network which links the oil block to the Kashim refinery facility.

Their action was in protest of Devon?s refusal to give them ?transitional? compensation from the recent sale of the Salawati block to PetroChina. Salawati was among Devon?s Indonesian assets sold to PetroChina.

Devon?s spokesman Erwin Lebe said on Monday production activities were continuing at Salawati wells although their combined output had dropped to 2,800 bpd of oil per day, from the normal level of 11,000 bpd. (Godang)