Repsol-YPF may cancel asset sale plan
Friday, August 10 2001 - 04:15 AM WIB
The sources said a number of oil and gas companies had showed intrests in buying the assets but they had thus far failed to reach an agreement with the company due to price reasons and a requirement for any buyers to buy the assets as a whole rather than in parts.
"The company might decide to continue its operation in Indonesia for some other years," one source said.
Repsol-YPF has said it will sell all its Indonesian assets as part of its plan to focus its operations on North Africa and South America.
The company owns a 65 percent stake in the South East Sumatra block, which is the country's largest offshore oil producing block,; 36.7 percent in the North West Java producing block; 25 percent in the West Madura producing block; 50 percent in the Poleng producing block.
It also has stakes in several exploration blocks, including the Jambi Merang block (25 percent), the Blora block (16.7 percent) and the South Sokang block (45 percent).
The company currently produces about 150,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day.
The price set by Repsol-YPF for all the stakes remain unclear.
State oil and gas company Pertamina was initially interested to participating in the bidding for the assets but it later withdrew the plan after finding that the price set by the Spanish-Argentinean firm was "too high".
When asked for comments, Pertamina's director of production sharing management Effendy Situmorang told Petromdindo.Com said he did not have any idea if Repsol-YPF would drop its asset sales plan.
He confirmed however that the company had failed to reach an agreement with any of the two bidders which have offered the highest price proposal. He did not name the two top bidders.
Repsol-YPF was likely to approach Pertamina again to buy the assets, he said.
"A top executive of the company will visit Indonesia next week," Effendi said, without specifying the purpose of the visit. (Alex/Godang)