Governor Riau asks for control of CPP oil field; House supports Pertamina to control CPP oil field
Wednesday, February 16 2000 - 04:00 AM WIB
Riau Governor H Saleh Djasit has asked Minister of Home Affairs Soerjadi Soedirdja to allow the Riau administration to take over the management of the Block Coastal Plain (CPP) oil block PT Caltex Pasific Indonesia (CPI).
In his speech at the working meeting of all Indonesian governors in Jakarta on Monday evening, the Riau governor said that the Riau province should be given the chance to manage its own oil resources.
The CPP, one several oil blocks operated by Caltex in Riau province, produces about 70,000 barrel of crude oil per day, or only about 8.75 percent of the company's total production of about 800,000 per barrel per day in the province.The production sharing contract to operate the CPP oil block will expire in August, next year.
According to the governor, allowing the Riau province to mange 8.75 percent of the province's total oil resources is fair enough.
The Riau administration's intention to take over the CPP management has gained a full support from the local legislators.
Minister of Mines and Energy Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono said on Tuesday that the government was considering allowing the provincial administration of Riau to take part in the development of the block.
"Because Pertamina is still in negotiations with Caltex, we can at present only consider the possibility of Riau joining the CPP ownership," he said in hearing with the Commission VIII of the House of Representatives (DPR).
DPR members, who earlier asked the central government to take a full control of the CPP oil block through Pertamina, supported Bambang's idea during the hearing. In their recommendation issued at the end of the hearing, the DPR members said that the full authority should be given to Pertamina to operate the oil block but it should also pay attention to the local people's aspiration.
"It is up to Pertamina to find its partners but DPR has the moral obligation to ask the government to also take care of the local people's aspiration in the operation of the oil block," Ramson Siagian of the Indonesian Democratic Party of Struggle (PDI-Perjuangan.( * )