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ndonesia’s largest publicly listed oil and gas company, PT Medco Energi Internasional (MEDC), reported on Wednesday that the construction of its Donggi-Senoro liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant in Central Sulawesi was on schedule.

Eka Satria, the director of asset development at MEDC subsidiary, Medco EP, said the construction was already 55 percent complete, exceeding their target of 43 percent.

“With this kind of progress, we hope we can find a new reservoir [within the plant’s area] so that Central Sulawesi becomes the center for gas distribution in eastern Indonesia,” he said at a media meeting on Wednesday.

The company hoped the plant would complete its first LNG delivery in late 2014, with an estimated total production of 2.1 million tons per annum (mtpa), said Eka.

Medco’s corporate affairs director, Andi Karamoy, added that the principal buyers of LNG produced by the plant would be Chubu Electric and Kyushu Electric Power of Japan, and the Korea Gas (Kogas) Corporation.

Under the delivery contract, 1 million tons of LNG will be sent to Chubu; 700,000 tons to Kogas; and 300,000 tons to Kyushu. The contracts for the three companies will last for 13 years.

Andi said the total investment for the plant was estimated to hit US$2.8 billion. He said the plant would be equipped with an LNG storage tank with a capacity of 170,000 cubic meters of gas; an LNG liquefaction train with capacity of 2 mtpa; one gas turbine generator with an output of 3x22.6 megawatts; and a jetty.

Eka said the plant would obtain its gas supply from two nearby gas-rich blocks, namely the Senoro gas block, which has estimated gas reserves of 1.9 trillion cubic feet (tcf) and the Mantindok gas block with 0.8 tcf.

Upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas’ operations deputy manager, Gde Pradnyana, said development on the Matindok gas block had already begun. He added, however, that the development of another gas block in Senoro had been halted due to some regulatory problems with its tender process, which he did not elaborate upon.

The Donggi-Senoro plant will be the fourth LNG plant in Indonesia after Arun in Aceh, Bontang in East Kalimantan and Tangguh in Papua. Medco owns an 11.1 percent stake in the LNG plant, while state-run oil and gas firm Pertamina, Mitsubishi and Kogas share the remaining 88.9 percent — with 29 percent, 44.9 percent and 15 percent, respectively.