Pertamina, Medco to ink $16b deal for Japan

Ika Krismantari, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Wed, 01/21/2009 1:24 PM  

State oil and gas company PT Pertamina and publicly listed PT Medco Energi Internasional are due to ink a gas deal worth US$16 billion with a consortium led by Japanese diversified business giant Mitsubishi Corp. 

The consortium will turn the gas in its Senoro plant into liquefied natural gas (LNG) for shipment to Japan. Mitsubishi has a 51 percent stake in the consortium, while Pertamina and Medco hold 29 and 20 percent, respectively. 

Pertamina vice president Iin Arifin Takhyan said on Tuesday the planned signing on Jan. 22 was a follow up to a deal secured in August, in which Pertamina and Medco would supply 17 trillion cubic feet of gas for 15 years to the consortium. 

The gas will be taken from the Senoro-Toili block, which is jointly owned by Pertamina and Medco, and the Donggi block, which is wholly owned by Pertamina. 

The LNG plant has a total capacity of 2 million tons per annum and is expected to start producing by 2013 for export to Japanese companies Chubu Electric Power Co. and Kansai Electric Power Co. 

Iin said the gas price would be determined under a formula where the price is set to trail oil price movements. 

He did not elaborate further. 

Medco Energi president director Lukman A. Mahfoedz said the consortium would decide the final investment required on the LNG plant project in February at the latest, before seeking loans to finance it. 

Indonesia has three LNG plants; Bontang in East Kalimantan with a capacity of 18.5 million tons per year, Arun in Nangroe Aceh Darussalam with 12.5 million tons annually, and Tangguh in Papua with 7.6 million tons annually. 

The Senoro plant will be the country’s fourth LNG plant, to be followed by an expected fifth one at the Masela project in the Timor Sea, where Japan’s Inpex is the operator. 

Indonesia may produce about 20 million tons of LNG this year, excluding Tangguh. 

Pertamina president director Ari H. Soemarno, as quoted by Bloomberg, said the gas price to Japan, linked to import costs of Japan’s crude oil basket, known as the Japan Crude Cocktail, would be $9 to $10 per million British thermal units based on crude oil at $100 a barrel. 

US gas futures in New York were at $4.676 per million Btu at 3:53 p.m. Singapore time, said Bloomberg. 

Chubu, Japan’s third biggest power utility, forecasts LNG purchases to stay unchanged this fiscal year as global recession cuts electricity generation in Japan, said Bloomberg. 

The utility, which supplies power to Toyota Corp., may import 10 million metric tons of the cleaner-burning fuel in the year to March 2010, Yuki Kakimi, the company’s general manager of fuels, said. 

“LNG demand will be sluggish for several years,” Kakimi said as quoted by Bloomberg. “LNG demand in the US and Europe will not be as strong as projected.