Pertamina Shortlists Banks for $1.5 Billion Global Bond Sale

Bloomberg, by Bambang Djanuarto and Shelley Smith

Jan. 21 (Bloomberg) -- PT Pertamina, Indonesia’s state oil company, shortlisted banks to help it sell as much as $1.5 billion of global bonds.

“We’re still on track to issue a $1.5 billion global bond, but we’ll be looking at the market and the price,” Vice President Director Omar Anwar said in a phone interview from Jakarta today. “We’ve shortlisted some banks from the 20 proposed.”

Pertamina, whose profit in 2010 may rise to 20 trillion rupiah ($2.15 billion), is spending about $400 million to build two liquefied natural gas terminals in West Java and East Java. Indonesia’s President Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, who won a second term in July in part on his promise to double spending on power plants, roads and ports, has pledged to deliver average annual economic growth of at least 6.6 percent over five years.

Pertamina said in November it planned to sell about $1 billion in dollar-denominated bonds in 2010 as it seeks to buy and develop oil fields to boost production. The company also plans to sell more than 1 trillion rupiah of bonds this year to finance capital spending, it said.

The $1.5 billion of bonds will be sold on the strength of Pertamina’s 2009 financial report, to be completed at the end of June, Anwar said.

Indonesia last week sold $2 billion of 10-year bonds at a higher yield than a sale earlier this month by the similar-rated Philippines, after scaling back the offering and canceling plans to sell 30-year debt.

To contact the reporter on this story: Bambang Djanuarto in Jakarta at bdjanuarto@bloomberg.net; Shelley Smith in Hong Kong at ssmith118@bloomberg.net.