Indonesia's Pertamina Chooses Exxonmobil And Shell

(ANTARA)

JAKARTA, Dec 5 Asia Pulse - Indonesian state-owned oil and gas company PT Pertamina has chosen ExxonMobil Corp. and Royal Dutch Shell plc for partners to develop the Natuna D-Alpha gas block in Riau, a report said. 

The partnership will be officially announced toward the end of this month, the newspaper Investor Daily quoting sources as saying. 

Pertamina Upstream Director Karen Agustiawan, however, said no decision has been made yet on the prospective partners of Pertamina to develop the block. 

A number of world oil giants also including Total SA, Chevron Corp. StatOil, China National Petroleum Corp., Eni SpA and Petronas, have shown interest in taking part in the multi-billion U.S. dollar venture. 

ExxonMobil and Shell were selected as they meet almost all conditions set by Pertamina, the source said. 

Pertamina needs financially powerful partners having the technology to develop one of the world's largest gas reserves. 

Around US$50 billion are needed to develop the block which is estimated to have a reserve of 46 trillion cubic of gas with 70% content of CO2.