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fter exceeding this year’s production target, PT Pertamina EP, a subsidiary of state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina, says that it is ready to increase oil production from 130,200 barrels per day (bpd) in 2010 to 132,000 bpd next year.

Pertamina EP president director Salis S. Aprilian said on Thursday that the company would apply several strategies to achieve the target, such as reactivating old fields, overcoming production constraints and accelerating the production of newly-found fields.

“With these strategies, I believe that Pertamina EP will be able to overcome the natural production decline potential that may reach 18 percent per year,” he said at a media gathering in Jakarta.

This years’ production exceeded the company’s initial target of 128,000 bpd.

“As of November this year, we logged Rp 19.6 trillion [US$2.2 billion] in earnings before interest and taxes,” Salis said, adding that the company recorded a total revenue of Rp 35.4 trillion this year.

With that achievement, Pertamina EP had become the largest profit contributor — around 80 percent — to parent company Pertamina this year, he said. He added that the company was committed to being a world-class company by 2014.

Pertamina has another subsidiary operating in this upstream sector called PT Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE), which produces oil and gas by cooperating with other companies. This year, according to Pertamina EP, PHE contributed around 14 percent to Pertamina’s total oil production and 18 percent to its gas production.

“We also plan to increase earnings by 15.4 percent to Rp 22.63 trillion next year for a planned total revenue of Rp 39.84 trillion,” he said.

Since it was established in 2005, the company has consistently expanded its oil and gas productions, reaching 101,200 bpd in 2006 and then growing by 8.9 percent in 2007 to 110,300 bpd. In 2008, it successfully expanded its production by 2.3 percent to 116,600 bpd and then jumped significantly to 127,100 bpd in 2009.

Pertamina EP also logged consistent growth in gas production in the past five years. In 2006, it produced only 869 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd). In 2007, that production increased 12.7 percent to 980 mmscfd. A year later, production reached 1,003 mmscfd, up 2.3 percent from the previous year. Last year, the company recorded a 3.9 percent increase in production to 1,043 mmscfd.

“We have about a 140,000 square km operation area across the country, divided into three work areas: Sumatra, Java and East Indonesia,” Salis said.

He said that almost all of Pertamina EP’s fields recorded increases in the past several years, for example Rantau field in Aceh where oil production jumped from 2,200 bpd in early 2010 to around 4,400 bpd currently.

The company also maintains positive growth in other oil fields like Bunyu in East Kalimantan and Limau in South Sumatra. Bunyu field increased its production from around 1,300 bpd to 6,800 bpd currently. Limau field boosted its production from 6,000 barrels total in 2007 to 12,000 in 2009.

Pertamina EP promised that next year it would utilize all opportunities to develop existing oil and gas fields to increase productions, Salis said. He added that the company spent Rp 6.7 trillion in capital expenditures in 2010, and expects to spend Rp 7.2 trillion next year.