Pertamina raises bonds to invest in Angola

Indonesia's state oil and gas firm Pertamina plans to spend $1.5 billion raised from global bond issues to invest in Angola and to develop its wells in Cepu and West Madura blocks, state enterprises minister Mustafa Abubakar said on Monday. 

Pertamina was reportedly in talks to buy Exxon Mobil Corp's 25 percent stake in an Angolan offshore oil block that could start production next year at around 150,000 barrels per day (bpd), after bidding around $3.5 billion.

Pertamina was not available to comment.

Indonesia's government wants Pertamina to improve production in a country desperate to meet growing fuel demand and which relies on gasoline and diesel imports. 

Pertamina's spokesman said in January that the company would invest 37.1 trillion rupiah ($4.3 billion) on capital expenditure this year mostly on well explorations and production as it planned to drill 76 exploration wells and 221 production wells. 

The state energy firm early this month has taken over as operator of the West Madura oil and gas block, off Java island, from South Korea's Kodeco Energy, and China's CNOOC has pulled out from the block. 

The West Madura block is expected to produce 32,000 bpd of oil in 2011, said Gde Pradnyana, spokesman of Indonesia's oil and gas watchdog BPMigas. ($1 = 8,537.5 rupiah). Source: Reuters