The government has announced the winners of three onstream oil and gas projects where operating contracts are set to expire in 2022.

The three blocks – Coastal Plains and Pekanbaru (CPP), Tarakan and Tungkal – produce 12,700 barrels of oil per day (bopd), thereby contributing 1.5 percent to national oil production of around 800,000 bopd.

The contracts will be extended by 20 years to 2042 under the gross-split production sharing scheme.

“With the three deals, the government got a total signature bonus of US$13.95 million and total five-year-working commitments of $179.15 million,” Deputy Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Arcandra Tahar said at a press conference on Monday.

The CPP block in Riau will be operated by PT Bumi Siak Pusako, a company owned by the local administration. The Tarakan block in North Kalimantan will be run by local energy company PT Medco E&P and the Tungkal block in Jambi by two companies -- Montd’or Oil Tungkal Ltd (70 percent participating interest) and Fuel-X Tungkal Ltd (30 percent participating interest).

The completion of the auctions for the three blocks leaves only the Sengkang block in South Sumatra, the contract of which expires in 2022, to be extended. A new contract for this block could not be signed yet, because the government has retracted a previous unofficial announcement on the block’s contract extension.

Arcandra has revoked his September statement that the government had granted existing operator Jakarta-based oil and gas firm Energy Equity Epic Pty Ltd an extension for the block until 2042. (bbn)

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