SKK Migas urged to take over role of land acquisition

By Bernard Loebs

The upstream oil and gas authority SKK Migas should take over the role of land acquisition for upstream oil and gas activities from oil and gas contractors to help speed up the process, according to Eddy Tampi, Chairman of oil and gas firm PT Sele Raya.

Speaking at the Oil and Gas Upstream Drilling Conference, Eddy said that many oil and gas production sharing contractors (PSCs) have faced difficulties in carrying out exploration and exploitation activities as they have been hampered by land acquisition process, which often turned out to be quite lengthy, and consequently costly. He added that PSCs are not structured to carry out land acquisition activities.

According to data from SKK Migas, there are seven Sele Raya oil and gas wells which have been engaged in land conflict with plantation firm PT Lonsum in the Merangin Dua block in South Sumatra. The seven wells include West Belani #8, West Belani #9, West Belani #10, West Belani #1, West Belani#2, West Belani#3 and West Belani #4.

Editing by Reiner Simanjuntak