Malaysia's Petronas extracts first oil from Bukit Tua field in Indonesia

[SINGAPORE] Malaysia' state-owned oil firm Petronas has extracted the first oil from the Bukit Tua field in Indonesia, the company said on Tuesday.

The field, located in the Ketapang block about 110 km off East Java, is expected to produce 3,700 barrels per day (bpd) of oil and 2 million standard cubic feet of gas per day (mmscfd) initially, the company said.

This will gradually be ramped up to reach a peak of 20,000 bpd of oil and 50 mmscfd of gas.

The field, which achieved its first oil on May 17, is Petronas' biggest upstream project in Indonesia so far, the company's general manager and country chairman of Indonesia operations Hazli Sham Kassim said in a statement. "This upstream project is an integrated development as it also involves the development of other supporting facilities such as Ratu Nusantara floating production, storage and offloading facility, a 110 km subsea pipeline and a 4.7 ha onshore receiving facility," he said.

Gas produced from the field will be transported through a pipeline to the onshore receiving facility in Gresik, East Java, while the oil will be offloaded to carriers for export, Petronas said.

Petronas has signed an agreement with Petrogas Jatim Utama, owned by the East Java provincial government, to sell gas produced from the field for electricity generation to meet Indonesia's energy demand, it said.

The Ketapang block is operated by PC Ketapang II, Petronas' Indonesian subsidiary, who owns 80 percent interest while the remaining 20 per cent is held by state-owned Perusahaan Gas Negara's subsidiary PT Saka Ketapang Perdana.

REUTERS