He also said that Pertamina had still to find buyers for the future gas supplies.
The country’s downstream oil and gas regulatory agency, BP Migas, named Pertamina as the winner of the Semarang-Gresik gas pipeline project in March, 2006. Based on the contract, Pertamina was required to start construction this year, and was given 30 months to complete the 250-km pipeline. The pipeline will transmit between 350 and 500m cuft /d of gas from the Cepu block, which straddles the border between East and Central Java, and contains an estimated 1.7t cuft of reserves. Pertamina and ExxonMobil, which jointly operate the Cepu block, had expected gas production to begin by 2009.
Mr Sumarno said that the Semarang-Gresik pipeline would connect with the South Sumatra-West Java pipeline, and formed part of the government’s ‘master plan’ to establish a national gas pipeline linking Sumatra, Kalimantan, and Java. However, in a separate development, state-owned gas distributor Perusahaan Gas Negara (PGN) said it had delayed the commercial operation of the two gas-rich South Sumatra-West Java pipelines it is building, although demand is rising after high crude oil prices forced factories to switch to alternative fuels, including coal and gas. The first pipeline from Grissik was scheduled to be completed in March, and the second, transporting gas from Pagardewa, was expected to start operations in November last year.
PGN president Mr Sutikno said that PGN would start piping gas from Pagardewa to customers in Cilegon in western Java at a rate of up to 40m cuft/d in the middle of this month (February), instead of November. The second pipeline would start transporting gas from fields in Grissik (operated by ConocoPhillips) in May, two months behind schedule, he added.