Riau wants larger share in oil operation

Riau province has demanded the House of Representatives to give the provincial government more authority to control and manage the province's oil resources, Satunet reported on Thursday.

Speaking at a hearing with the House members on Wednesday, Riau governor Saleh Djasid said that the province should at least have an equal standing with the state owned oil company Pertamina in managing oil and gas resources in the country.

For that purpose, Saleh urged the House to amend the oil law No 8/1971, which at present gives exclusive rights to Pertamina to handle the country's oil and gas resources. The law should be revised so that the provincial government will also have an authority to manage their own oil resources.

Riau is the country's largest oil producer, with over 50 percent of the country's oil production came from the province. Caltex Pasific Indonesia, the main oil operator in the province, controls most of the oil fields in the province.

The government has allowed the Riau government to take over the Coastal Plain Pekanbaru Plain (CPP) oil block, one of Caltex's oil fields in the province, when the contract ended in August next year. But the management of other oil blocks are still controlled directly by Pertamina. (*)