Pertamina may reap 180,000 bpd from Iraq oil field

Deputy Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Susilo Siswoutomo says state oil and gas firm PT Pertamina may reap 180,000 barrels per day (bpd) of crude oil should its plan to acquire assets in the West Qurna-1 block in Iraq go ahead.

He said the central government would support Pertamina to gain approximately 10 to 20 percent of shares in the West Qurna-1 block, which is operated by US-based giant ExxonMobil.

“The West Qurna-1 oil field’s potential is 1.8 million bpd of crude oil. With that, we hope Pertamina can at least reap 180,000 bpd from the field should the transaction go to plan,” he told The Jakarta Post on Friday.

Susilo was among Indonesian officials who traveled with a delegation led by the Coordinating Economic Minister Hatta Rajasa to Baghdad, who met on Thursday with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Al-Maliki to hold talks on the economy and energy sector.

In addition to the Pertamina’s possible inclusion in the West Qurna project, both the Indonesian and Iraqi governments also signed a deal in which Pertamina would receive a supply of around 35,000 to 65,000 bpd of crude oil from Iraq, starting in May this year, to be refined into petroleum.

Located in Basra, West Qurna is one of the Iraq’s largest oil fields.

The project was in question last year, when Exxon offered to sell its stake after contracts it signed with the autonomous Kurdistan region riled Baghdad, which rejected them as illegal, Reuters reported.

Separately, Pertamina investment planning and risk-management director Afdal Bahaudin said the final decision to sell part of West Qurna-1’s assets would be in the hands of Exxon’s executives as well as the US government.

“This is not a matter of the Iraqi government anymore but depends on the decision from Exxon and the US government,” he told the Post, citing that “there had not yet been further talks on the matter.”

Last year, Pertamina, currently the second-largest oil producer in Indonesia behind US-based Chevron, produced around 190,000 bpd of crude oil. The Jakarta-based firm has been aggressively eyeing overseas oil assets to boost its own production.

Exxon executives have yet to comment on the matter.

The Jakarta Post