Indonesia has appointed several firms to conduct exploration of three oil and gas blocks, which include units of state energy company Pertamina and Italy's Eni, the energy ministry said on Wednesday.
The blocks are namely Peri Mahakam, Sangkar, and Bunga. Indonesia plans to offer 10 oil and gas working areas to contractors this year, including a block in the South China Sea, amid efforts to make new discoveries and reach one million barrels of oil per day by 2030.
For Bunga, located north of East Java, a consortium of PT Pertamina Hulu Energi and South Korea's POSCO International Corporation, senior energy ministry official Tutuka Aridaji told a briefing.
The block has an estimated oil and gas resource of 1.3 billion barrels of oil equivalent, similar to Peri Mahakam, which he said would be explored jointly by a consortium of Pertamina Hulu Energi and Eni Indonesia.
Peri Mahakam covers over 7,400 square km (2,857 square miles) onshore and off East Kalimantan province on Borneo Island. Exploration of Sangkar block, which has an estimated 130 million barrels of oil and 300 billion cubic feet of natural gas, was awarded to PT Saka Eksplorasi Timur, Tutuka said.
(Reuters - Reporting by Fransiska Nangoy; Editing by Martin Petty)