Total says interested in Natuna D Alpha
Tuesday, March 27 2007 - 05:00 AM WIB
? Total will be interested if invited to participate, but it must be made clear that Total is not in a position to confront with any other company,? Total E&P Indonesie President and General Manager Phillipe Armand told reporters.
Armand said that Natuna D Alpha is a giant project that would need participants which possess strong financial condition and advanced technology, as the project is expected to cost US$25 billion to develop with the state-of-the-art technology to be employed.
?The project is too big to be carried alone even for ExxonMobil,? he said, referring to present operator of the block. He, however, said that no formal talks about the possibility to enter the block has been carried out so far.
Pertamina CEO Ari Soemarno told reporters on Monday that if Pertamina was given right to operate the block, it might form consortium with companies such as ExxonMobil, Statoil, Total or Shell. These companies, he said, had technology and financial capacity to carry out the project?s development.
Exxon Mobil is currently negotiating with the government over the block?s contract extension. Exxon Mobil insisted that the block?s contract is still in place, while the government said that the company?s contract on the block had been automatically terminated due to unfulfilled conditions such as lack of market and lack of development plan. The government said that so far no guarantee that the block?s contract would be given back to Exxon Mobil.
The D-Alpha block is said to have 46 trillion cubic feet of natural gas but the high carbon dioxide contents in the gas make the production of the gas very expensive. ExxonMobil Oil Indonesia President Peter Coleman said on October 2006 interview that it would need an investment of $10 billion to bring the block to produce 1 billion cubic feet per day.
ExxonMobil has 76 percent interest in the block, with Pertamina holding the remaining balance. (alex/godang)