Unocal to spend $700 million in West Seno oil project

Unocal Indonesia will spend about US$700 million to further develop its offshore oil exploration project in the West Seno oil block in Makassar Strait. The project will start in 2003 and will be carried in two stages, Bisnis Indonesia reported on Wednesday.

Nurman Djumiril, the vice president and general counsel of Unocoal Indonesia, said that the company would allocate about US$350 million for the development of the oil field in the first stage, and other $350 million for the second phase of the project.

"The funds will be obtained from OPIC, a U.S. ?based financial company, and from its own fund and Pertamina" he was quoted as saying.

He said that the company expected to be able to produce 20,000 barrels of crude oil per day during the first stage of the oil field development. "The production is also expected to increase to 50,000 barrels per day during the second stage of the oil field development," he added.

Nurman said larger part of the crude oil to be produced from the new offshore oil field would be exported to meet rising demand from international buyers, and the other would be sold in the domestic market to meet the local demand.

Separately Unocal Indonesia?s supervisor and manager of public relations and media relations, Samsulistyo, said that the exploration activities in the West Geno oil field had run as expected. "In 2003 we hope to start the construction of production facilities, so that in 2004 or 2005 the company could begin its commercial production," he said.

He said the West Geno field is the deepest offshore oil field in the country where drilling activities were carried out at the depth of between 800 and 1,000 meters. According to him, the company had spent about $400 million for the exploration activities, which started in 1997. (*)