Pertamina Keen on Taking Over Rosneft Asset
Jakarta. State energy company Pertamina mulls over a plan to buy interest in an oil and gas block in Russia in order to expand its overseas operation.
Syamsu Alam, Pertamina's upstream director, said a Pertamina team was in Moscow to evaluate an oil and gas block belonging to Rosneft, Russia's state-owned oil and gas company.
"The asset is now being evaluated. Its total production is approximately 170,000 barrels per day," Syamsu told Investor Daily, Thursday (28/04).
Pertamina would aim for a minority interest in the block, Syamsu said, considering the company's limitation to work in Russia's merciless winter, when temperature can reach minus 50 degrees Celsius.
"Operations there can not last throughout the year, because when it's cold, it stops," he said.
The oil block is one of many assets Rosneft is offering Pertamina as part of its effort to tie cooperation in both the upstream and downstream sectors.
The Russian oil giant is also a frontrunner in a tender for Pertamina's new refinery in Tuban in East Java. The refinery is expected to produce 300,000 barrels of oil a day, and help reduce Indonesia's fuel imports.
Rosneft has a proven reserve of 43 billion barrels of oil equivalent as of the end of 2014. Its production was 5.16 million barrels of oil equivalent per day.
Wianda Pusponegoro, Pertamina's corporate communications vice president, said the company has set aside $2 billion for merger and acquisition this year.
Pertamina would likely still go ahead with the Rosneft asset acquisition even if the Russian company failed to win Tuban's refinery project. "As long as the asset fits our portfolio, we will pursue a merger," Wianda said.
Tags: Keywords: