The government has pushed contractors of the gas-rich Masela block to start construction in 2019, a senior minister said Tuesday.

Acting Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Luhut Binsar Pandjaitan said after a meeting in Japan last week with the CEO of Inpex Toshiaki Kitamura, one of Masela block's contractors, that both parties agreed to carry out the project so that the construction could start within the next three years.

"Everything has already been negotiated, and both parties agreed to find a win-win solution. We will not carry it out in sequence, but in parallel. We hope the Masela construction can start anytime in 2019," Luhut said in Jakarta on Tuesday.

He earlier demanded that the plan of development (POD), being revised from an offshore to an onshore scheme, be completed before the end of this year.

The original POD for an offshore scheme was submitted by Inpex and Shell in 2010, but the discovery of more extensive resources led contractors to submit a revised POD last year to adjust the floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant's capacity to 7.5 million tons per year, up from 2.5 million tons.

However, the project took a U-turn when President Joko "Jokowi" Widodo decided that an onshore plant would bring more benefits to the local economy, forcing the contractors to redo their POD which led to delays in the development of the block. (evi)

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