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n a bid to increase total oil output, state-owned oil and gas giant PT Pertamina has targeted to secure 600,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (boepd) from its overseas oil fields production.

Pertamina'€™s senior vice president for upstream business development, Denie Tampubolon, said on Thursday that the target was part of the company'€™s overseas expansion until 2025.

'€œThe acquisition of assets overseas [by Pertamina] will help the state company to boost production in the future and bring additional crude oil supply to meet demand in Indonesia,'€ Denie said.

He added that his company was now assessing five blocks overseas to be taken over, possibly this year. However, Denie declined to reveal more details.

Pertamina'€™s overseas expansion began in 2002 through a cooperation contract in Vietnam. In its latest move, the company acquired oil and gas assets in Algeria from ConocoPhilips in a deal worth US$1.75 billion. From the acquisition, the company is expecting 25,000 boepd this year.

Pertamina also purchased 10 percent participating interest in the West Qurna I block in Iraq from ExxonMobil Iraq Limited last year. Pertamina is optimistic over the Iraq field considering that its production is expected to reach 1.6 million barrels of oil per day (bopd) by 2020 from this year'€™s 400,000 bopd.

When the block'€™s production hits 1.6 million bopd, according to Denie, the company will enjoy around 150,000 bopd from that block alone, a significant amount compared to output from oil fields at home.

As part of attempts to support the expansion, Pertamina has set aside $2 billion to finance the overseas acquisitions.

'€œOur estimation is that this year we will get an additional 18,000 boepd from new acquisitions overseas,'€ Denie said.

'€œWe will look for fields that can provide quick yields. However, we are not looking into exploration assets,'€ he added.

Pertamina, which ranks 122nd in the prestigious Fortune 500 list, is targeting to hit total oil and gas production of 2.2 million boepd by 2025.

Regarding its short-term target, the company is expecting its subsidiary running upstream business, PT Pertamina EP, to reach 375,000 boepd in production by 2018, meaning that it will surpass Chevron as the biggest oil producer in the country.

Pertamina is targeting to book total oil and gas production of 554,710 boepd this year, higher than 465,220 boepd last year.

Given the current production level, the company will need to boost its output by around 4.5 times to meet its goal of having 2.2 million boepd by 2025, Pertamina upstream director M. Husen said.

'€œWe have to go overseas. Other oil and gas companies have also performed this. However, we will also continue explorations and hope to be able to announce huge findings,'€ he said.

Bond issuances are part of the company'€™s efforts to secure financing to support the expansion. Husen said the company has completed road shows in the US to attract investors to purchase Pertamina'€™s planned bonds.

Senior vice president for planning and operation evaluation Djohardi Angga Kusumah cited that the company needs $24 billion in investment to support its expansion during the 2014 to 2018 period.