Villagers bar Sele Raya from building pipelines

By Godang Sitompul

Oil and gas firm PT Sele Raya Merangin Dua has been barred by villagers in Musi Banyuasin regency of South Sumatra from building oil pipeline past their lands despite that the firm has got permission from the regent to develop the project, upstream authority BPMIGAS has said.

?Sele Raya is actually able to produce up to 3,000 barrels per day of oil. Now, it can?t produce that much because there are lands measuring 100 square meters owned by the villagers over which the firm is barred from building the pipeline,? I Gde Pradnyana, head of security and formality division at BPMIGAS, said on Tuesday.

Gde did not provide the name of the village.

As a consequence of the Sele Raya has been forced to carry its oil using trucks which have limited capacity. Furthermore, the trucks can?t move fast due to heavy traffic.

Editing by Johannes Simbolon