Work on Indonesia's Kepodang Gas Field to Resume

Development work on the much delayed Kepodang gas field at the Muriah block off Central Java will soon commence following the approval of its plan of development, Jakarta Post reported.

Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik said he had met Petronas chief executive officer Shamsul Azhar Abbas to discuss the company’s plan to accelerate the development of the field.

“Petronas has just presented to me how it will develop the two fields: Kepodang and Bukit Tua [at the Ketapang block in East Java]. The company said it could move forward first production from 2015 to 2014,” he told reporters after the meeting at his office in Jakarta.

He continued that the Kepodang field was previously scheduled to deliver 116 million standard cubic feet per day (mmscfd) of gas to state electricity company PT PLN’s power plants in Tambak Lorok, Semarang, Central Java, in April 2015. But after further discussions, the company said it was ready to begin production in October 2014.

The production-sharing contract (PSC) with Petronas will actually expire in 2021, but since the project has been delayed for more than three years, the government has compensated by prolonging the PSC until 2025, assuming the worst case scenario that gas delivery starts in 2015, Jakarta Post reported.