Pertamina upstream unit may grow output by 50%

JAKARTA. Upstream oil and gas regulator BPMigas says Pertamina EP, the upstream business unit of state-owned company PT Pertamina, should be able to ramp up its oil output by 50 percent within the next three to four years through the optimization of its working areas.

“According to our data, Pertamina EP still has ample opportunity to increase oil output from existing working areas,” BPMigas head Raden Priyono told reporters on Monday.

Pertamina EP holds a total concession area of 138,611 square-kilometers, or around 48 percent of the country’s total oil and gas working areas.

However, its production-per-square-kilometer rate is only 0.89 bpd of oil, far below other oil and gas companies operating in the country. PT Chevron Pacific Indonesia, for instance, has the production-per-square-kilometer rate of 41.3 bpd with a total area of only 8,700 square-kilometers.

Even Total EP Indonesia, which has a total area of only 3,121 square-kilometers, has a better rate of 28.64 bpd of oil.

He also highlighted Pertamina EP’s reserves-to-production ratio, which currently stood at about 4.5 percent, only half of the national average of 8.8 percent. That fact implied the company had not optimally exploited reserves within its working areas, he said.

“If Pertamina EP seriously improved production in existing fields, developed idle fields and reactivated suspended wells, I believe that the oil production can be increased to 200,000 bpd from the current 130,000 bpd,” Priyono
said. According to the 2012 State Budget, Indonesia aims to produce 950,000 bpd.

The company could also enjoy additional production if it developed 165 idle fields across the country, Priyono said.

“There are also 5,244 suspended wells which, if reactivated, can add to the company’s production,” Priyono explained.

The application of water flood and enhanced oil recovery (EOR) could also help the company take out more oil from the ground. There were 36 candidate fields for the application of the technologies within Pertamina EP’s working areas.

Pertamina EP failed to achieve its oil output target of 132,000 bpd last year by producing only 126,000 bpd. According to BPMigas, the company lost around 7,000 bpd due to land-related problems and unplanned shutdowns.

The company aims to produce 135,000 bpd in 2012. In addition to optimizing production at the current fields, the firm is also committed to boosting production from suspended wells that are scattered within its working areas across the country.

The company has studied around 300 out of 5,144 suspended wells that are expected to yield a combined output of 100 bpd.

Earlier this month, the company announced that it successfully pumped up production at the Bunyu field in East Kalimantan to 6,500 bpd of oil, around 29 percent above the target. The main contributor of the increase was the production of the BN-24 well with 2,600 bpd.

The Bunyu field is one of the company’s fields which is located in the eastern Indonesia region. The field has a total area of 165.7 square-kilometers. At the field, Pertamina EP has drilled 212 wells, 32 of which are in the production phase. (Rangga D. Fadillah/The Jakarta Post)