INDONESIA - The Tuban JOB & PetroChina Ventures.

PetroChina, now Pertamina's partner in the Tuban joint operating body (JOB), stands to benefit from the Sukowati bonanza. This field, straddling the adjacent Cepu block, is said to have over 2 bn barrels of oil in place with recoverable reserves on the Tuban side estimated to be in excess of 400m barrels.

PetroChina came to Indonesia in April 2002, as it acquired from Devon Energy of the US stakes in six oil and gas fields for $262m, its first such deal outside of China. The move was to help meet China's rapidly growing energy demands, with the IEA having forecast the world's biggest nation will need as much as 12m b/d of oil by 2030. PetroChina's acquisitions are in Central Sumatra, the Salawati Basin in West Papua and East Java's Tuban. The latter's Sukowati field has a prolific Jujung Fm.

Another prise in PetroChina's Indonesian acquisitions is a 30% stake in the Jabung and South Jambi B Selatan PSA blocks in South Sumatra, which produced about 1.1m barrels oe net to Devon from January to March 2002. Their oil and gas reserves are considerable. Alone Jabung's reserves are conservatively estimated at 300m barrels of liquids and 2 TCF of gas.

Devon had acquired the Indonesian assets in Aug. 2000 when it purchased Santa Fe Snyder and all its units. Now PetroChina, as operator, produces 30,000 b/d of 37 deg. API, 0.4% sulphur oil from the Mudi field and nearby structures in the Jabung block, which went on stream in early 1998. Some of the crude oil goes to a Pertamina refinery and the rest is exported to Singapore. Production capacity is to expanded to 41,100 b/d and 130 MCF/d of gas. Gas production capacity is to be raised further for supplies to Singapore (see below), with an NGL plant to be installed on the block. PetroChina's partners on this block are Amerada Hess (30%), Kerr-McGee (30%) and Pertamina (10%).

In September 2000, Santa Fe made two gas/condensate discoveries, one on the Jabung block and another offshore on its Salawati Island PSC block off West Papua (see below). The onshore North Gemah-1 well tested 29 MCF/d of gas and 1,000 b/d of condensates from selected zones at a depth of 2,073 m in a Talang Akar sandstone. The average CO2 content was 30% in a 213-m gas column. This was the seventh consecutive exploration well on the Jabung block to be completed as a producer (see background in Vol. 56, No. 10).

A 20-year contract to supply Singapore with 2.273 TCF of gas in total from the Corridor, Jabung and South Jambi B blocks was signed in Feb. 2001 by Pertamina and Singapore Power (SP). The supplies consist of 948 BCF from Corridor, 894 BCF from Jabung, and 431 BCF from South Jambi B. Deliveries will begin on July 12, 2003 at the rate of 150 MCF/d, rising gradually to an average of 350 MCF/d by 2009.

In 1991-95, Santa Fe had drilled 16 wells and made six finds on its PSC blocks. These include one on Vogelkop peninsula in West Papua, for which it got a 20-year contract extension from Pertamina in the autumn of 1996 and the company pledged to spend $10.2m on exploration over five years. In late 1996, Santa Fe got a PSC for the 8,595 sq km Pagatan Block in the Asem-Asem Basin off South-East Kalimantan. In Sept. 2000 Santa Fe reported an offshore discovery on the Salawati Island PSC block off West Papua, where KO1-1 tested 2.5 MCF/d of gas and 900 b/d of oil from two intervals with the well drilled to a depth of 1,381m. The find, only 40 km from Santa Fe's West Papua operating base, expanded the offshore potential in the area of the existing TBC and TBA discoveries. Now PetroChina has Santa Fe's 33.33% stake in the Salawati Island block.

Another prime Devon asset in PetroChina's acquisition is the development of the Betara Complex of gas fields on Jabung block, which Devon had planned to put on stream in late 2003. This is being delayed because the lowest bid for the EPC contract, $340m made in mid-2002 by a partnership of Japan's Chiyoda and Singapore's Semb-Corp Engineers and Constructors (SembE&C), was 26% more than the original budget set by Devon. The higher cost arose from substantial changes to the work scope during the previous 14 months. The EPC contract is for Phases 3 and 4 of the Betara Complex development, to commercialise the Makmur and North Geragai gas fields. The project calls for a stabilised production rate of 130 MCF/d of gas for export to Singapore and 1,315 t/d of LPG for export to Japan. Makmur and North Geragai are also set to produce 15,000-20,000 b/d of oil.

The proposed facilities include an LPG floating production unit, a floating storage and offloading (FSO) vessel, a mooring buoy, gathering lines and onshore plants for gas and NGLs, along with requirements for directional drilling and shore crossings. An added challenge is posed by the shallow waters in the area and high carbon dioxide levels in the gas.