Negotiations Of The Masela Alot Block, Minister Of Energy And Mineral Resources Disappointed

Crude oil (Photo: Doc. Antara)

JAKARTA - Director General (Dirjen) of Oil and Gas (Migas) of the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (ESDM) Tutuka Ariadji conveyed the progress of negotiations on the acquisition of Masela blocks from Shell by the Indonesian state-owned oil and gas company, Pertamina.

Tutuka said that currently the negatation process is still ongoing. On the same occasion, Tutuka also expressed his disappointment because the takeover of the right to participation or participating interest (PI) had not been completed and took a long time.

"Masela is still in progress, but it's like this, Masela has been around for a while, so the government has lost optunity," Tutuka told the media quoted on Wednesday, May 24.

According to Tutuka, with this tough coordination, the government has lost the opportunity to take advantage of the potential for natural gas sources from the Abadi Field gas project Blok Masela.

With the length of this negotiation process, said Tituka, ESDM Minister Arifin Tasrif also had time to express his disappointment.

"Finally, the Minister of Energy and Mineral Resources expressed disappointment. So we want to follow up," added Tutuka.

He further explained that later the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources together with related parties would review the development planning or Plan of Development (POD) of Blok Masela in the near future.

"So we want to follow up. We'll see how the POD can take so long," said Tutuka.

Previously, on different occasions, ESDM entertainment Arifin Tasrif revealed that SHell should have understood the situation more and was flexible in the process of taking over the management of the Masela Block.

"Still in the negotiation process, it's a bit tough. Shell should understand better because Shell's history in Indonesia has been around for a long time, she (got benefits) a lot. Since the beginning of time there was Shell, that's why it's for the benefit of Indonesia, she doesn't want to be flexible," said Arifin when met at the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources Building, Friday 19 May.