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newly renovated floating production unit (FPU) to be used to support gas production at the Terang Sirasun Batur field, Madura Island, is scheduled to depart from the Sembawang shipyard in Singapore this week.

Upstream oil and gas regulatory body BPMigas chief Raden Priyono officially inaugurated the operation of the FPU, named after Madura’s legendary Joko Tole, at the Sembawang shipyard on Saturday.

 He said that the vessel would have the capacity to produce 340 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of gas.

“Joko Tole can also produce 2,200 barrels of oil per day [bpd] and has a total capacity of 200,000 barrels,” Priyono said at a ceremony to mark the completion of the vessel’s renovation.

The vessel is slated to depart from Sembawang this week and arrive at Terang Sirasun Batur by the end of this month.

Priyono said the field, operated by production sharing contractor Kangean Energy Indonesia, would start production in June and would have a total capacity of 315 mmscfd of gas.

“The production of the field will be used to supply gas to state electricity PT PLN at 130 mmscfd, to Petrokimia Gresik at 65 mmscfd, to PT Pertamina Gas at 100 mmscfd and PT Indogas at 20 mmscfd,”
he said.

From the Joko Tole vessel, the gas would be channeled to those companies through the East Java Gas Pipeline, he added.

Gas demand in East Java is estimated to reach 400 billion British thermal units (Btu) per day, with 250 billion Btu per day going to industries.

Joko Tole was rented by Kangean from oil and gas floating storage provider BW Offshore for 10 years. The 255-meter-long and 19.5-meter-high vessel was built in 1988. The US$100 million vessel was renovated in Batam while final finishing work was carried out in Singapore.

This year, 15 oil and gas projects will begin production with a total production of 1,158 mmscfd of gas and 35,200 bpd of oil.

Among the 15 projects are the 39th, 40th and 54th projects at the West Madura offshore (WMO) block in East Java with the operator of Pertamina Hulu Energi WMO. The projects are estimated to produce 13,600 bpd of oil starting in the third quarter of next year.

The South Mahakam 1 and 2 fields at the Mahakam block in East Kalimantan, operated by France-based Total E&P, are also expected to start in the fourth quarter of this year. The projects are projected to contribute 250 mmscfd of gas and 20,600 bpd of oil.

Those projects are among Indonesian efforts to reduce the pace of its production decline.

“Our oil reserves are limited, but the exploration of hydrocarbon has resulted in more gas findings. We can expect that our gas production will increase as our future projects are mostly dominated by gas,”
Priyono said.

The nation’s oil reserves have long been in continuous decline. Indonesia’s oil and gas production was 2.4 million barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) in 2011, declining from 2.5 million boepd in 2010 and 2.3 million boepd in 2009.

As of January, the country’s oil reserves were estimated at 3.9 billion barrels of oil and 104 trillion standard cubic feet of gas.