Pertamina says antidumping rule does not affect West Natuna project

The antidumping duties recently imposed by the government on steel imports from Singapore and Japan would not affect the current construction of the gas pipeline linking the gas fields west of the Natuna islands in the South China Sea to Singapore, state oil and gas company Pertamina said on Monday.

Spokesman of Pertamina's foreign contractor management body (BPPKA) Sidick A Nitikusuma said the construction of the pipeline had been 90 percent completed and Pertamina and its production sharing contractors which own the giant project did not to need to import any more steel pipe for the project.

"We have bought all the pipes that we need for the project. We are now in the tie-in and test phase, which means all the pipes have been placed on the bottom of the sea and are being connected with each and other and tested," Sidick told Petromindo.Com.

"We hope to conduct trial operation in December this year," Sidick added.

Pertamina's contractors that own the project are American firm Conoco. Inc., Britain's Premier Oil and Canada's Gulf Resources.

They have signed an agreement with Singapore's Sembawang Gas (SembGas) Corp. to transmit natural gas from their gas fields in West Natuna to Singapore through a 560-kilometer underwater pipeline starting from 2001.

American firm McDermott is building the pipeline using steel pipes mostly imported from Japanese firm Marubeni.

Local steel producers accused the Japanese firm of conducting dumping practices to win the West Natuna project.

After a months-long investigation, the Indonesian Antidumping Committee (KADI) found evidences that the company and several other companies from Japan and Singapore have conducted dumping practices and recommended the government to impose antidumping duties on them.

Minister of Finance Bambang Sudibyo recently issued a decree to temporarily impose an antidumping duty of 51 percent on Marubeni for its welded pipe for four months from July 12 until the final decision on the matter was made.

Aside from Marubeni, the ministry also imposed antidumping duties on Japanese firms Kawasaki (12 percent), Nippon Steel (five percent), NKK (81 percent) and Sumitomo (54 percent). All welded pipes from Singapore are imposed with the same level of antidumping duty of 78 percent.

Sidick said Pertamina would abide by the ministerial ruling in developing any projects in the future. (*)