re: Ann: BPMigas-Indonesian Constitutional Co...
Raden Priyono will be pissed off......
Pertamina ‘ready’ to replace BPMigas Amahl S. Azwar, The Jakarta Post, Jakarta | Headlines | Sat, November 17 2012, 11:04 AM A- A A+
Paper Edition | Page: 2
State oil and gas company PT Pertamina will be ready if it is assigned to take over BPMigas’s role as the nation’s upstream oil and gas watchdog following the disbandment of the agency early this week, the company’s senior executive has said.
Pertamina Hulu Energi (PHE) president director Salis S. Aprilian said in Jakarta on Friday the company would be prepared should the government decide to hand over the authority of the erstwhile regulator to them.
PHE is Pertamina’s upstream oil and gas business subsidiary managing domestic and overseas oil and gas fields under production sharing contracts (PSCs), Joint Operating Body–Production Sharing Contracts (JOB-PSC) and holding participating interest in several blocks.
“If the government gives us the task to do so, then certainly we must be ready,” he told The Jakarta Post in Jakarta. “Basically, the firm’s current functions are quite similar to those of BPMigas, but perhaps at a smaller level.”
PHE, he said, so far managed 42 contracts in Indonesia, including those in which the subsidiary had formed units to act as the operators, such as in the oil and gas block West Madura Offshore (WMO) and the Offshore North West Java (ONWJ) block.
Salis said, however, that PHE would wait and see how the new law set to replace Articles in the Law 22/2001 on oil and gas developed.
The Constitutional Court on Tuesday annulled all articles related to the regulatory body stipulated in Law No. 22/2001 on oil and gas. The court said that the articles had violated Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution, which stipulates that the state should reap the most benefits from the country’s natural resources, for the welfare of the people.
The court’s panel of judges found that BPMigas did not directly run the country’s oil and gas resources and instead handed them over to state-owned companies or private companies through cooperation contracts, the court said in its ruling.
According to the panel, such a mechanism limited access for the state to maximize the benefits of natural resource management for people’s welfare, as stipulated in Article 33 of the 1945 Constitution.
“With the verdict, the government and the House of Representatives may create a new law stipulating the formation of a brand-new state-run enterprise to run as the upstream oil and gas regulator or merely assign the job to an existing state-owned company. We have to wait for the development of the matter,” Salis said.
Separately, Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry’s director general for oil and gas affairs, Evita Herawati Legowo, said the government was indeed considering reassigning the now-defunct BPMigas’ authority to Pertamina.
“There will be more comprehensive talks to discuss that,” she told the Post on Friday.
Following the verdict, the government has temporarily transferred BPMigas to the so-called upstream oil and gas business activities implementation unit or UPKUHM, under the supervision of the Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Jero Wacik to oversee 302 existing oil and gas contracts.
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