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akarta-based oil and gas company Queen Energy Indonesia announced on Wednesday it would start operating the Loyak Talang Gula onshore block in Muara Enim, South Sumatra, with production expected to begin in 2014.

Queen Energy Indonesia CEO Antonius Kristanto said in a statement the
firm’s subsidiary, Queen Energy Loyak Talang Gula, had signed an agreement with state-owned oil and gas firm Pertamina EP in December last year to jointly develop the block.

“We aim to reach an oil and gas production level of around 500 barrels of oil equivalent per day [boepd] in mid-2014 from the block,” said Anton, revealing that Loyak Talang Gula would be the first oil and gas block the firm was to operate in 15 years.

Queen Energy will allocate US$7.75 million to develop the block, in which activities will include a 3-D seismic survey to reach a production level of around 1,500 boepd of oil and gas within three years after the contract was signed, the executive said.

The Loyak Talang Gula block was one of the minor oil and gas fields in Indonesia that Pertamina EP tendered out under joint cooperation schemes in a bid to optimize the activities at the block to boost Pertamina EP’s overall oil and gas output.

Currently, the Loyak Talang Gula block, located 170 kilometers from Palembang, South Sumatra, covers 15.24 square kilometers in Muara Enim and has three fields with combined potential reserves of 30 million barrels of oil and 163 billion cubic feet of gas.