Less barrels: from Pertamina if green law pushed
New green rules may hurt Pertamina
Indonesia's state oil company Pertamina may miss its crude oil production target of 190,000 barrels per day in 2010 if a new environmental law is enforced, a company official said today.
Pertamina has been under pressure from the government to increase oil production after a steady slide in Indonesian oil output as fields age and on a lack of new investment.
Pertamina produced 176,000 bpd in 2009.
"Pertamina will find it difficult to reach its crude oil output target in 2010 due to environment rules," the official, who declined to be quoted by name, told Reuters.
Environment Minister Gusti Muhammad Hatta told Reuters in October 2009 that he intended to enforce a new environment law that allows the government to cancel the operating permit of any company found to be breaching the terms of its environmental impact assessment.
"The enviroment rule will mean stiff punishment for a violator. So surely Pertamina will be afraid to breach rules and the risk is that output will be down from the target," said the Pertamina official.
Indonesia has said it would produce 965,000 bpd of crude oil and condensate this year, down from 1.5 million bpd in the 1990s and compared with 949,100 bpd in 2009.