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il and gas producer PT Saka Energi Indonesia aims to increase its revenue contribution to parent company, state-run gas distributor PT Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN), from the current less than 10 percent to 50 percent in 2019, the company'€™s top executive has said.

Saka Energi '€” which is wholly owned by publicly listed PGN '€” is experiencing remarkable growth and plans further expansion.

Saka Energi commercial operations chief Tumbur Parlindungan said the company was upbeat about becoming a money generator for PGN in the next five years. '€œWe are currently contributing less than 10 percent, next year we expect the contribution to go up to 10-20 percent. In 2019, we hope we can make up half of PGN'€™s sales,'€ Tumbur said in a press conference on Thursday.

Saka Energi saw its top line rise from US$34.84 million in 2013 to $297.8 million in 2014, according to PGN'€™s annual report. The 2014 figure is equal to 9.77 percent of PGN'€™s revenue in the reported period.

Saka Energi'€™s revenue was $131.86 million in the first half of this year, an 11 percent decline from $151.8 million in the same period last year.

The company'€™s chief financial officer, Devi Pradnya, said that while her company expected a slight hiccup this year on slumping oil prices, Saka Energi was optimistic it would see an upward trend in the coming years. '€œWe think oil prices are already at the bottom, there'€™s no other way for them but to move up next year,'€ she said.

Brent crude, a benchmark for more than half the world'€™s oil, has recently begun to bounce back above $50 per barrel, while in early 2014 the price was above $100 per barrel.

Saka Energi began commercial operations in 2013, and Tumbur said the company had started to book a positive cash flow last year.

Behind the company'€™s optimism is its aggressive expansion. The company reported that it had recently discovered new oil and gas reserves in its wholly owned offshore Pangkah block in East Java, with oil output expected to reach 10,000 barrels of oil per day (BOPD) and gas production to reach 30 to 50 million standard cubic feet per day (MMSCFD).

Tumbur said the company expected to start production from the newly drilled wells in 2017 by the latest, and would allocate oil output for export and gas production for domestic uses.

The company is also aggressive in its overseas expansion to secure gas supply. Last year, Saka Energi entered a deal to purchase a 36 percent stake in the Fasken block in Texas, the US, from Swift Energy Co. in a deal worth $175 million. Through Fasken, Tumbur said, the company produced 12,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day (BOEPD), in line with its stake in the block.

So far, the company has produced 31,000 BOEPD, more than its targeted output of 30,000 BOEPD and far above last year'€™s production, which was below 20,000 BOEPD, according to Tumbur.

The company currently has participating interests in nine blocks, including that in Fasken, a 100 percent stake in the South Sesulu block in South Sulawesi, and in Pangkah.

Tumbur said his company was currently eyeing other projects, but focus would mostly be on eastern parts of Indonesia and in the US.