Indonesia and Singapore signed a nine billion dollar deal here Monday to supply gas from Indonesia's Sumatra island to the city-state over 20 years through a 500 kilometer (310 mile) pipeline.
Singapore's Trade and Industry Minister George Yeo and Indonesia's Energy and Mineral Resources Minister Purnomo Yusgiantoro presided over the signing of nine contracts covering the deal, which was the outcome of three and a half years of negotiations.
Indonesia's state oil and gas company Pertamina will supply 2.27 trillion standard cubic feet (TSCF) of gas from three fields in southern Sumatra through a 28-inch diameter high-pressure pipeline to Singapore from July 2003.
"This will in time provide an estimated 37 percent of Singapore's total gas supply," Pertamina director Baihaki Hakim said.
Yusgiantoro said the deal marked the second international sale of Indonesian piped gas, following the first delivery of gas from Indonesia's West Natuna fields to Singapore last month.
"Sumatra gas to Singapore not only benefits their projects but strengthens ties between Indonesia and its ASEAN (Association of South East Asian Nations) neighbours," Yusgiantoro said.
The minister said the deal was key "to the long term of goal of developing Asian gas pipelines and connecting Indonesia to other nations and in turn providing us with new international markets."
Yeo said the deal, coming on the heels of the first delivery of gas from West Natuna to Singapore in January, took "cooperation between our two countries another major step further."—AFP.
©--Agence France Presse 2001.
© 2001 Mena Report (www.menareport.com)
