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Indonesia Offering Major Energy Contracts

The Indonesian government is dangling at least 41 onshore and offshore oil and gas blocks to foreign and domestic investors under a production-sharing scheme to improve the country`s oil production. Luluk Sumiarso, director general of oil and gas of the Energy and Mineral Resources Ministry, said "We will award contracts for 20 of the blocks through tenders and the other 21 on the basis of direct offers."

"For direct offer documents, we will hold them for 14 days. If another company submits better proposals regarding exploration and signature-bonus commitments, then we will select this company," Luluk said. "A majority of the direct offers are coming from local investors comprising at least 80 percent of the total interest."

Luluk told the local media the blocks being offered were located in the Natuna area, South Sumatra, East Kalimantan, West Sulawesi, Lampung and West Java. In the past, the Indonesian government has offered eight of these sites but failed to attract any taker. Jakarta will be receiving bids and proposals on the contracts starting August 28. The deadline for the submission of direct offer documents was 2:30 p.m. on August 11, while the closing date for the bid documents was 2:30 p.m. on December 26.