Offshore staff

SINGAPORE -- The Association of Indonesian Oil and Gas Companies called on the Jakarta government to revise its oil and gas policy to enable local private firms to take part in oil exploration and production.

Association chairman Effendi Siradjuddin said Indonesia still could increase its crude oil production with a new policy to support local companies in exploring new fields, or operating brown and marginal oil fields relinquished by foreign companies.

He cautioned that the country's crude oil production was widely predicted to drop to less than 1 MMb/d this year from 1.062 MMb/d in 2005, 1.09 MMb/d in 2004 and 1.14 MMb/d in 2003.

Effendi said Indonesia has at least 60 brown fields local companies could manage. He sees the possibility of Indonesian companies owning up to 70% of the fields in the country by 2020, compared with just about 15% now.

Indonesia has a couple of mid-size upstream companies involved in oil and gas projects. Provincial governments have started forming companies to participate in the hydrocarbon developments under the new oil and gas law which grants them an automatic 10% concession in territories within their provincial jurisdictions.

7/24/06