Indonesia’s state-owned Pertamina Gas Company has allocated $64.2 million of its budget to develop oil exploration projects abroad. The company plans to sign an agreement with the Iraqi Oil Exploration Company to develop a 17,700 square kilometer oil field in the state’s western desert.
Iraq and Indonesia’s signed an agreement last March to enhance bilateral cooperation in oil and gas exploration. The agreement called for Pertamina to drill for oil and gas at a 10,000 square kilometer block in the western desert. In addition, Iraq’s Oil Mminister and his Indonesian counterpart signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for technical cooperation between the two ministries.
Indonesia has made previous efforts to boost cooperation with Iraq under the United Nations’ (UN) oil-for-food program. Iraq has been under a strict UN embargo since its 1990 invasion of Kuwait. The oil-for-food program, which has been in place since 1996 and allows embargo-hit Iraq to sell oil and buy food, medicine and other essentials for its 22 million people. — (menareport.com)
© 2002 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
