Pertamina yet to inform govt over expansion

JAKARTA. State-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina has yet to formally request the government to open an interstate forum with Venezuela to ease the firm’s way to buying into an oil and gas company located in the South American country in a bid to boost its oil production, a top official at the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry says.

The ministry’s oil and gas director, Evita Herawati Legowo, told The Jakarta Post on Wednesday that Pertamina had not officially informed her office over its business plan to expand into the oil-rich South American country.

“As for their [Pertamina’s] plan for Venezuela, we have not received an official letter asking us to open a government-to-government forum,” she said in Jakarta.

Evita added, however, that the government would support Pertamina’s expansion plans overseas, including in Venezuela.

Pertamina plans to acquire a 32 percent stake in Venezuelan firm Petrodelta S. A. from Houston-based Harvest Natural Resources Inc., a company listed in New York.

In June, both Pertamina and Harvest signed a share purchase agreement for the latter to sell the stake to Pertamina in a transaction reportedly valued at US$725 million.

If the acquisition succeeds, Pertamina would own its 32 percent stake, leaving Petrodelta’s parent company, Petroleos de Venezuela, S.A., with 60 percent and another Venezuelan company, Vinccler O&G Tech, with 8 percent.

Separately, Pertamina’s upstream director, Muhammad Husein, told reporters in Jakarta that the company was still communicating with the government over its business plan for Venezuela, but acknowledged that the official proposal had yet to be submitted.

“We hope there will at least be a ministerial-level forum [between Indonesia and Venezuela] to aid our plan,” he said.

He added that Pertamina hoped that with talks between both countries’ energy ministers, the company would also obtain entitlements to carry out oil and gas exploration.

Pertamina’s investment and risk-management director, Afdal Bahaudin, told the Post via text message that the firm would await the results of Venezuela’s general election, slated for October, before determining its next step. (Amahl S. Azwar, The Jakarta Post)