Purnomo denies reports on management reshuffle at Pertamina

The government will not reshuffle the management of state oil and gas firm Pertamina in the near future, Koran Tempo daily quoted Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources Purnomo Yusgiantoro as saying Wednesday.

Purnomo said that the management reshuffle could be made only after Pertamina?s statutes and rules were ready.

?The secretariat of the Ministry of Finance is studying the draft statutes and rules,? the minister told reporters.

In June this year, President Megawati Soekarnoputri signed a decree transforming Pertamina into a limited liability company, in line with the 2001 Oil and Gas Law which ends the firm's decades-long monopoly over the country?s oil and gas sector.

Reports said that the government would replace Pertamina's president director Baihaki Hakim and other top leaders of the firm this or next week.

Baihaki got the president director post in 2000. He had served as president director of oil and gas producer PT Caltex Pacific Indonesia, the subsidiary of American energy giant ChevronTexaco.

Rumors say he will be replaced by oil and gas director general Iin Arifin Takhyan; or Hary Purnomo, former finance director of Pertamina; or Roes Aryawijaya, deputy to the state minister of state enterprises. (*)